When Hong Kong’s fight against smugglers in speedboats turned deadly
- In the 1980s and ’90s, police engaged in sometimes fatal pursuit of powerful speedboats heading to mainland China carrying everything from VCRs to cars
A dangerous offshore battle, fought intermittently in Hong Kong waters for some 20 years, is to be commemorated by a new installation on the city’s Central waterfront, outside the Hong Kong Maritime Museum on June 24.
Since the late 1980s, law enforcement agencies have grappled with large-scale cross-border smuggling syndicates operating purpose-built, high-speed power boats known as dai fei. Many officers were injured, some lost their lives, in pursuing these stealthy craft.
“It was a deadly game,” says retired superintendent Les Bird, who commanded the first small boat unit tasked with tackling the dai fei problem.
At its peak in the late 80s and 90s, armadas of up to 30 vessels fitted with steel-tipped bows – designed for ramming police vessels – would swarm into secluded Hong Kong waters at night. Assisted by accomplices, they would load cargoes of contraband luxury goods before speeding off towards mainland China.
They were basic but manoeuvrable, and unless the smugglers were arrested in the act of loading contraband, or intercepted with illicit cargo on board, convictions were almost impossible. Huge profits could be made by criminal gangs seeking to satisfy an insatiable demand created by rising prosperity on the mainland, accompanied by high import tariffs. A fully loaded dai fei could transport, say, 400 VCRs, at a profit of about HK$1 million for a night’s work.
“They had four or five big V8 outboard engines on these pre-moulded GRP shells,” says Bird, “and they used to fly across the water at speeds of up to 50 knots, hence the name dai fei – big fliers.”
