The Justice Department is seeking to increase the jail term given to a convicted drug trafficker who set up a bogus drug bust from jail - to get his sentence reduced - with the help of a Narcotics Bureau sergeant.
The phoney drug bust, hatched by Wong Kwok-kau in 1999, won him a seven-year discount from a 14-year jail term for trafficking heroin, as a reward for being an informant. The bogus bust led to the seizure of 11.1kg of the drug Ice which Wong himself had purchased.
As a consequence, in October 2002, he was convicted of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and jailed for another four years and eight months. Yesterday, Director of Public Prosecutions Grenville Cross SC told the Court of Appeal the original seven-year sentence for heroin trafficking was 'manifestly inadequate as it was procured by fraud'.
'The [bogus drug-bust] fraud prevented the judge from discharging the duty which was incumbent upon him, namely, to pass an appropriate sentence ... for the offence which had been admitted before him,' he said. '[Wong] hoodwinked the police and misled the judge.'
The Court of Appeal was told the ICAC discovered the plan that led to the phoney July 8, 1999, drug seizure at a hotel in Mongkok.
The officer involved in the scam was arrested by the Independent Commission Against Corruption along with Wong, but was released.