A mainland Chinese man, while returning to mainland China from Papua New Guinea via Hong Kong International Airport, chose to enter Hong Kong due to an overnight flight delay. The man was intercepted by Hong Kong Customs at the airport's immigration checkpoint, where it was discovered that his carry-on luggage contained a whole box of tortoise shell products.
The man was brought before the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts in Hong Kong and was denied bail by the court. He was held in custody for over a month pending a hearing for his plea.
In court, the defendant admitted to the charges. The magistrate, taking into account that tortoise shell products are from an endangered species and due to the large quantity involved, set a starting point of nine months for the sentence. The sentence was reduced by one-third (three months) for the guilty plea. Additionally, considering the defendant's lack of prior criminal record and the mitigation plea by our lawyer, a further reduction of three months was given. However, since these sea turtles had a global population of only 15,000 to 25,000 in the last decade and their numbers have been decreasing, with few adult sea turtles remaining, the court noted that the production of these tortoise shell products would have required at least 20 turtles and decided not to consider a suspended sentence.
Therefore, the defendant was sentenced to three months of imprisonment. After deducting the one month already spent in custody, the defendant still had to serve over one more month in prison in Hong Kong. Subsequently, he was deported back to mainland China.
Case number: WKCC 2480/2019
August 2024
Dr. Anthony Lai and Mr. Herbert Kwoon
Comments