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John Carney

In Hong Kong you can dial a pizza, dial a dinner or dial a prayer, and now you can dial a line - of cocaine.
Drug dealers are using a network of taxi drivers to deliver and sell the narcotic for HK$1,000 a gram to customers who have contacted them by phone or text message.
A number of users have spoken to the Sunday Morning Post detailing how they obtained the mobile numbers of dealers, who arranged a transaction with a taxi driver at a prearranged location.
In the past year, news of the operation has spread quickly by word of mouth and business is apparently booming. 
As in many other big financial centres around the world, some of the professionals working in Hong Kong use cocaine recreationally despite the fact that the drug is illegal. Those found in possession of the drug face imprisonment.  
One former customer said that after arranging a location, a customer would be given the registration number of a cab that would also have an out-of-service sign on it as if it had already been hired.  
 The cab would stop at the prearranged spot, the customer would get in and the transaction would take place with the driver. A little further up the street, or around the corner, the customer would be dropped off.
'Sometimes there would be a person sitting in the passenger seat of the taxi,' another former customer said. 'Obviously this was in case you tried to pull a fast one or things got nasty. I'm sure they'd be ready for it if that was to happen.' 
He said many of the taxis did not go into Lan Kwai Fong because of police patrols, but it was 'normally fine' if people were out for the night anywhere else, such as nearby Soho and Hollywood Road in Central.  There had been times when dealers had sold out for the night.
'As far as I know, there are a few dealers using taxis to deliver charlie [cocaine],' another former customer said. 'They are trying to undercut each other.  I only take cocaine once in a while and their product is terrible anyway, so I don't have any problem going public about it.'
To emphasise this, one ex-customer said  he got cocaine delivered  using the 'dial-a-line' service and spent the next two days in hospital because the product was so bad. 
Police confirmed they were aware of the taxi issue, monitoring the situation and acting on information.
'It's a common method and something that has been done in the past,' a police spokesman said. 
'There have been instances where persons employed as taxi drivers were arrested in connection with trafficking in a dangerous drug.' Between 2007 and February 2010, 21 people had been arrested, he said.
The police said they adopted a proactive, intelligence-led approach in tackling drug trafficking, and would sometimes seek orders to confiscate  drug-deal proceeds.
During the Hong Kong Sevens, they have stepped up anti-drug publicity and enforcement action, especially on Hong Kong Island.
Kwok Chi-piu,  president of the Urban Taxi Drivers Association Joint Committee, one of the biggest driver unions in Hong Kong, was aware that some cabbies knowingly drove dealers to locations where they could buy or sell drugs. But he did not know of cabbies being directly involved in delivering and selling drugs.
He said the problem of cabbies driving drug dealers around had existed for a long time, and that he occasionally received information about cases.
A driver sought Kwok's advice two years ago because a woman was regularly hiring him to drive her in the small hours from Tseung Kwan O to Yuen Long, where she carried out drug deals. 
The driver was reluctant to give up the regular income: several hundred dollars per trip, four times a week, Kwok said.  He eventually talked the driver out of serving the woman.
 The taxi group reminded drivers not to risk arrest for the sake of a few hundred dollars in fares, Kwok said.
The Sunday Morning Post obtained a number for one of the  dealers. After texting the dealer about buying some 'charlie', 15 minutes later we received the reply: 'Who is your friend who gave you this number?' After we replied that we had just arrived in town to watch the Hong Kong Sevens and wanted some cocaine for the weekend, they texted back 10 minutes later saying: 'Please ask your friend to confirm this first, thanks.'
As it was impossible to do so, the deal fell through. But one former customer said: 'You only had to phone or text them and give the name of someone they know is a regular customer. 
'Sometimes they don't even ask for a person's name to verify you are trustworthy.'




Drug dealers use dial-a-line taxi network