$1 Billion Worth of Meth Found Inside a Shipment of Coconut Water

Hong Kong customs officials intercepted 1.8 metric tons of liquid methamphetamine—the largest meth seizure in the city’s history—hidden inside cartons of coconut water. 

The shipment, which is thought to have originated in South America and arrived from Mexico en route to Australia, was stopped on Oct. 23 based on intelligence from Australian police officers in Mexico, according to a statement released over the weekend. 

Hong Kong customs official Fong Heung-wing told reporters that both the size and nature of the delivery raised suspicions, as “coconut water [shipments] from Mexico are extremely rare… the last time was in 2016 and weighed just six kilograms.” An online search for its alleged recipient, an Australian company, also came up empty.

While Hong Kong authorities estimated that the “high purity” meth was worth more than $140 million, Australian officials suggested that had it reached the country—one of the highest-paying markets in the world for the drug—it would have attracted a street value of more than $1 billion.

“This amount of meth could have been sold as about 18 million street level deals,” said Patrick Gordon, the Australian police’s senior officer in Mexico. He further suggested that “Australia’s problem of illicit drug use is bankrolling a raft of dangerous and brutal cartels, triads and outlaw motorcycle gangs.”

The historic seizure came just days after Hong Kong law enforcement intercepted $5.9 million worth of meth, also headed for Australia, hidden in electrical transformers—and marks a continuation of a worrisome trend for law enforcement bodies both locally and regionally.

Collectively this year, Hong Kong authorities have seized almost three tons of methamphetamine—more than double the meth seized in the whole of 2021—as both East and Southeast Asia experience major upticks in the flow of synthetic drugs.

This recent bust, which ranks as Hong Kong’s largest-ever meth seizure, comes almost exactly a year after authorities in Laos recorded Asia’s biggest-ever drug bust—which comprised more than 55 million amphetamine tablets and over 1.5 tons of crystal methamphetamine. 

Unlike that shipment, however, which is thought to have originated in Myanmar’s Shan State in the heart of the notorious Golden Triangle, Hong Kong’s recent meth seizures have both come from Latin America, specifically Mexico, whose cartels have in recent years become major producers of methamphetamine and close partners of Chinese criminals.

In any case, researchers at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have highlighted an ongoing boom for the Asian synthetics drugs trade, as prices plummet and supply surges.

“The region is literally swimming in methamphetamine,” said Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, in May. “And I think it’s high time that the region start taking a hard look at policies in place to address the problem.”

No arrests have yet been made in relation to Hong Kong’s most recent seizure.

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