The blatant drug dealing epidemic at Hong Kong’s Lan Kwai Fong party area has been “eradicated”, according to the Central vice squad.

Believe it or not, it wasn’t just because of that huge poster of a white guy shouting “Say no to drugs!”… and those blatant drug dealers you saw this weekend were actually handing out Mentos.

According to the SCMP, 84 people have been arrested in the last few months after a series of undercover operations in the area.

Those convicted have received sentences ranging from a stint in a drug addiction centre to two years and eight months in jail.

“The blatant drug trafficking in Lan Kwai Fong has been eradicated,” Mark Ford-McNicol, assistant district commander for the Central vice squad, said. “We’ve more or less cleared Lan Kwai Fong of the African guys that were doing it.”

More or less indeed.

Despite Ford-McNicol’s need to specify that the majority of those arrested were African men seeking refugee status in Hong Kong, nationals from China, Hong Kong, Bangladesh and Pakistan were also collared in the sting.

Photo: Matt Watts

Grove: Coconuts Brand Studio

Fast. Funny. Digital. We produce creativity that delights and influences customers. Join forces with us to slay buzzwords, rise above the noise, and sow the seeds of something great.