海關與緝私：由緝私隊到香港海關

1. 1886: the tariff line came before the service

On 11 September 1886 the Qing court and the Hong Kong Government completed an agreement under which the Chinese Inspectorate of Customs was authorised to establish the Kowloon Customs, with duty and likin payable on opium in transit. The earliest customs presence was not a Hong Kong department but a cross-border revenue arrangement.

Because Hong Kong called itself a free port, local customs work could not start with import duties. On 17 September 1909 the Government set up a preventive squad under the marine department to collect duty on alcoholic liquor, and that squad is the ancestor of Hong Kong Customs.

There is a tension between a free port and customs enforcement: Hong Kong traded on duty-free transhipment, and cross-border smuggling exploited exactly that gap. Customs history is a long argument over which goods to control and which waters count as a border.

2. 1948 to 1953: a cross-border agreement and smuggled gold

On 18 October 1948 the British ambassador in China, acting for the Hong Kong Government, signed an anti-smuggling agreement with the Nationalist foreign ministry allowing Chinese customs officers to operate in Hong Kong waters. On 25 January 1953 naval police and preventive officers found 3,000 taels of smuggled gold aboard a British warship, valued at more than 900,000 dollars.

Together the two episodes set out the post-war position: smuggling is a cross-border activity, so enforcement needs cross-border arrangements, and the value of one shipment of gold can exceed a lifetime of ordinary income.

Between 1948 and 1953 the object of enforcement widened from goods to people: beyond smuggled gold came population movement and refugees, and the list would only grow.

3. 1959 to 1974: drugs and the border

On 11 November 1959 the Government published a white paper on the drug problem, describing serious damage to local society and the economy, proposing legal amendments, wider powers of arrest and prosecution for the police and the preventive service, and a voluntary treatment centre at Castle Peak Hospital.

On 2 June 1974 the preventive service stopped a fishing boat off Cheung Chau and found 119 Vietnamese asylum seekers aboard. The scope of the job is visible here: enforcement at sea covers goods, people and refugees at once.

Drugs needed a white paper because arrests alone do not reduce supply: demand, treatment and enforcement had to be discussed together. It marks the point where an enforcement department had to connect with other policies.

4. 1977 to 1987: a name and an independent department

On 1 August 1977 the preventive service left the Commerce and Industry Department and was renamed Hong Kong Customs under an amending ordinance. On 1 August 1982 a new Commerce and Industry Branch was created under the Colonial Secretariat, overseeing the Industry Department, the Trade Department, consumer protection and Hong Kong Customs, which from the same date operated independently of the department.

On 25 June 1987 the Customs Co-operation Council, now the World Customs Organization, meeting in Ottawa, admitted Hong Kong as a member. Between a squad inside a department and a member of an international body lies a question of standing: an independent customs service can represent itself abroad.

5. 1989 to 2005: a widening mandate

From 1 January 1989 Hong Kong Customs enforced a weights and measures ordinance made in 1987. On 2 August 2002 the National Copyright Administration and Hong Kong Customs signed their first mutual assistance arrangement on copyright protection and pirated discs, and on 23 September 2002 Hong Kong Customs and the United States Customs Service signed a statement of principles admitting Hong Kong to the container security initiative.

From 1 November 2005 Hong Kong Customs operated red and green channels at every immigration control point, easing declaration for travellers while protecting revenue. The mandate moved from goods to people: the same service inspects containers and decides at a channel who must declare.

6. Corruption, intelligence and technology

On 9 February 1993 the ICAC arrested 13 people, five of them customs officers, over bribes that eased the smuggling of luxury cars to the mainland; the operation seized 20 cars worth 18 million dollars. On 20 February a senior customs inspector was jailed for two years for taking and offering bribes.

On 21 August 2001 customs seized more than 4.1 million illicit cigarettes in Kwai Chung, the first operation to use a mobile X-ray vehicle scanning system. Technology changed inspection: instead of opening containers at random, officers scan first and decide afterwards.

Corruption damages an enforcement agency beyond individual sentences: it makes frontline intelligence untrustworthy. Cooperation with the ICAC therefore became routine rather than exceptional.

7. 2010 to 2016: drugs, containers and wildlife

On 16 July 2010 customs broke up the first methamphetamine laboratory and drug store ever found locally, arresting five people. On 4 July 2012 officers seized about 649 kilogrammes of cocaine from a container that arrived in Kwai Chung from Ecuador.

On 25 August 2016 the Environment Bureau, customs, police and the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department formed a task force on wildlife crime and held its first meeting. The list has grown from dutiable goods and drugs to pirated discs and endangered species: the targets of enforcement follow international rules.

From dutiable goods to endangered species, the list follows international conventions, but the method stays the same: risk assessment and intelligence first, hands on containers second.