39. Operation Clinker

[00:00:00] Bill: But all of this was done with three of us sat on the edge of a bed, literally our faces an inch apart, because I could not hear John talking if I'd been any further away, he was literally speaking in the quietest whisper. This guy is clearly very nervous about being overheard, very nervous about his room being bugged.   I suddenly thought, "Wow, this is serious business".

Early Days

 I was born in Moose Lake, Minnesota. My mother went over to America in the early 60's as a nurse looking for work, quite a brave thing to do back in those days... met my father in Chicago. , Minnesota is one of these places where they used to say that, "You sell milk by the pound in winter and butter by the pint in summer". So I think we went from August when I was born to be blazing hot to the middle of a Minnesota winter. So I think that was enough for them. So we went back to Chicago.

[00:01:37] Steve: This is Bill Renwick, formerly of the Hong Kong Marine Police and protagonist in Hong Kong's greatest drug bust of the eighties, Operation Clinker. Chicago was followed by a short stint in San Diego, a parental break up and several years in boarding school in the UK, while his mother and stepfather pursued a career opportunity overseas. And where, not surprisingly, Bill became a regular visitor to Hong Kong.

Move to Hong Kong

 And it was on one of these visits that I met someone in the Hong Kong Police. I think I was due to go to LSE and study law at university, and he said, "Well, why are you doing that?" And I sort of said, "Well, I'm not really sure". And he said, "Well, come and join the Hong Kong Police, much more exciting". So he took me around training school and I saw people marching and shooting and arresting people and doing all this sort of stuff. And I thought, "Wow, that looks a bit more exciting", so I applied, managed to get in.

[00:02:42] Steve: So, Bill finished school, upped sticks, and moved overseas to live with his parents and joined the Hong Kong Police. And after rigorous training, he had to choose which branch of the police he wanted to join.

Hong Kong Marine Police

[00:02:56] Bill: I've always been involved in boats. My parents always had sailing boats. That's how we used to spend our summer holidays. And I liked the idea of being in the Marine Police and I ended up posted in Marine North, which is up near the Chinese border.

[00:03:10] Steve: So I'm guessing patrolling for illegal immigrants may have been high up on the list?

 At that time, the handover in '97 had just been agreed and there was quite a sharp drop in number of illegal immigrants trying to cross the border. It was more smuggling and that kind of activity. There was a thing they used to do out there called 'fish bombing', which was illegal, which was basically they'd go out in sampans at night, big bright spotlights shining into the water to track the fish up and then they'd lob dynamite in. And... I remember one of the first times I was out on division and... we went to one of the nearby fishing villages, where they have a fantastic seafood restaurant and we all sat around and met all the village elders and one of them was called Ah Sek who only had one arm, he'd lost it in a fish bombing accident, you know that was a sort of badge of honour I think. He was quite revered.

[00:04:05] Steve: Did he elaborate on how he lost his arm?

[00:04:09] Bill: Uh, no, I'm not, not specifically, but I think it was just probably, hanging onto the dynamite for too long. Didn't, didn't, didn't throw it in the water quick enough.

Operation Clinker

[00:04:24] Steve: Never a dull moment in the Hong Kong Marine Police, but 1988 - Operation Clinker was like adding hot sauce to an already spicy adventure.

[00:04:38] Bill: So it all started when a Canadian who was based in Manila in the Philippines was approached and asked to sail a yacht up to Hong Kong, collect an undisclosed cargo and then sail down to Australia. His suspicions were aroused when they asked him to actually go and find a suitable yacht as well. He immediately alerted the Australian Federal Police   and rather than jumping straight onto it, the Australian Federal Police contacted the Hong Kong Police Narcotics Bureau and said, "Look, we think there might be something going down here". And at that point, they hatched a plan as to how they could potentially catch both the ringleaders in Hong Kong and the Ringleaders in Australia for this whole venture.

The Plan

[00:05:34] Steve: Although only mere suspicion at this point, that plan was fleshed out and a dream team was assembled.

[00:05:42] Bill: So, the plan was formed to get some police officers on the yacht as crew and then they could seize the vessel before it left Hong Kong waters and find out what was on there. Initially, the Narcotics Bureau agent Rod Mason was tasked with doing that. He had some knowledge of boats and sailing, he was ex-Merchant Navy. But they felt he needed one other who had some sailing experience and we'd met playing rugby so he thought of me. But we then thought, "Well, They're going to need more than just two crew to get down to Australia".

So if the Canadian skipper, who's called John Bridges, advertised for crew and gets two civilians, when the bust actually happens we're not going to be able to keep it secret. So we thought it was safer if we had all... police hired as crew,  but they would pretend to be civilians throughout the entire operation and so protect John a bit.

 There's quite a lot of cues here that this could be dangerous. Drugs, triads, open water confrontations. Why did you say yes?

 In my youthful naivety I just thought, "Wow, yeah, this looks exciting. Yes, please". I didn't think anything more about it really. When you join the police, you're... joining because you want excitement and action and to be out of your comfort zone and to do things you wouldn't experience otherwise. And so this fitted the bill perfectly in that regard.  

[00:07:17] Steve: So, a quick recap: So far, we've met John Bridges, the plucky Canadian, who brought his predicament to the attention of the Australian Police Federation in the first place; Rod Mason, the lead on the sting from Narcotics; Rod's new sailing mate, Bill of course, and that left the need to find two civilians. Time to meet Nick and Debbie.

Nick & Debbie

[00:07:43] Bill: So Nick I was at training school with, he was in my squad. I'd roped him in to do some sailing with us. We used to do inshore racing out of the Aberdeen Boat Club and then races across to the Philippines every year. And then Rod thought of Debbie Muir who was one of the few, if not the only, expatriate female officers in the Hong Kong Police at the time.

[00:08:05] Steve: So you've got a trusted team put together. But what about John Bridges, the originator? He'd come from nowhere. How could he be trusted?

Trusting John Bridges

[00:08:17] Bill: Hmm. Well, obviously we couldn't entirely trust John and the thought had crossed our mind that this could be a setup, this could be distracting our resources and our attention. I suppose what was going through people's minds was, "Well, why would he put himself in the spotlight if it wasn't a genuine case, if he was... he was nervous, he was worried he got into something?" He'd said he'd had an experience with his brother who had died from a heroin overdose. So he was quite anti drugs, but again that's hearsay. So the bottom line is you don't trust him. You watch everything like a hawk and you plan, or try and plan, for alternative scenarios.

The Cargo

[00:09:04] Steve: And of course at this stage you've got absolutely no idea what the cargo might be.

[00:09:10] Bill:  You're thinking, "Okay, what are they going to do?" I mean they're not going to be trying to export an illegal shipment of rubber ducks, you know, it's going to be something that's going to earn a lot of money and typically that would be drugs. So just the way it was being approached, you kind of knew that it was very likely. But of course, you don't know.

[00:09:32] Steve: It sounds much more art than science, doesn't it? It's the experience of the team, it's a nod and a wink...

[00:09:39] Bill: Very much so, but you're going back to the mid-eighties now so the technology and... that was available for surveillance is very different from what it is now.

Tricky drugs bust at sea

[00:09:47] Steve: Yeah, and it's obviously a very well planned, controlled operation. But you're going to do the actual bust out at sea, which sounds a bit perilous. What was the reason for that?

[00:10:00] Bill: Well, it had to be done secretly because we knew there were suppliers of this cargo in Hong Kong, or would be, assuming it was what we thought it was, and we didn't want them knowing that we'd taken the boat because that would give us a chance to deal with suspects and make preparations for what we were going to do next. We also legally had to make the arrest within Hong Kong waters and Hong Kong not being a big place, that left us a fairly narrow window where we needed to be as far out as possible but still within Hong Kong waters.

[00:10:37] Steve: As meticulous as the planning tried to be, the team had no say in which boat would be used, i.e. the scene of the crime. She was already on her way from the Philippines. She was The Oui.

The Oui

[00:10:53] Bill: So The Oui was, right, a 45 foot ketch which is, you know, a large single mast where your... main sail and jib goes from and then a little mast aft. That's actually significant because ketches typically have a center cockpit and then have a raised aft cabin. But yeah, classic sort of single keel sailing yacht.

[00:11:14] Steve: Presumably it's got an engine as well?

[00:11:17] Bill: Yep yep, inboard engine. Normally something that size is about six berths, so you'll have a little V-shaped forward cabin, a big master saloon at the back of the boat and then a couple of bunks around the main saloon table where you would eat if you were eating down below.

 John Bridges had arrived in Hong Kong from Manila in The Oui and was ready to meet Rod and Bill for the first time. Let the subterfuge begin.

First meeting with John

[00:11:50] Bill: We met over in a little hotel in Kowloon on the mainland side of Hong Kong Harbour and it was in the Mariner's Club. We met John in his room, and we sat on the edge of a small double bed and we started to talk about the plan. We talked about when John would put the advert out, when we would orchestrate the responses and people coming along and then when we would meet and how we would do communications in between and all sorts of detail.

But all of this was done with three of us sat on the edge of a bed, literally our faces an inch apart, because I could not hear John talking if I'd been any further away, he was literally speaking in the quietest whisper and me, who's never been on an undercover operation before, this guy is clearly very nervous about being overheard, very nervous about his room being bugged. And it was a real wake up call for me. I suddenly thought, "Wow, this is  serious business".

[00:12:54] Steve: The team prepared themselves to attend contrived job interviews with the, as yet, unknown face of a drug syndicate or, if their hunch was wrong, just a hapless adventurer on his way to Australia. Without getting selected as crew for the boat the operation would be beached. Location, the Spaghetti House in Kowloon. It was time to meet Roberto. At first sight, not the villainous ringleader of a drug syndicate, but looks can be deceiving.

Meet Roberto

[00:13:31] Bill: We actually had some undercover policemen in the restaurant watching our backs because we just didn't know what to expect. This is the first time we'd met Roberto. Roberto was a Filipino male, probably in his, mid-forties, and small sort of wiry guy, glasses, seemed affable, jovial. Thankfully, he knew very little about boats hence why he'd contacted John in the first place. We all had to come across as credible and support John's decision that these were the best candidates that had... come up. As it turned out I believe we were the only candidates who turned up, . but we still had to get past Roberto and get selected.

[00:14:19] Steve: So tell me a little bit about the meeting itself.

[00:14:22] Bill: Bearing in mind we all actually knew each other, we had to turn up at this location all separately, and from the word go not give a glimpse of the fact we knew each other. We had all the stories carved out beforehand, we even had little bits of conversation quite carefully choreographed. So Nick, for instance, we did a whole spiel about, "Oh, have you ever sailed before?" "Oh, yes, I did. I came out to Hong Kong. I actually raced in the South China Sea race" and I said, "Oh really? Did you? I did that. Oh, which boat were you on?" And... anyway, in the... choreographing of this, I gave Nick the yacht the Frumious Bandersnatch, which is a well known yacht that you can't forget the name of. And unfortunately, poor old Nick completely got tongue tied. And I said, "What yacht were you on? And he said, "Oh, I was on the Fleur du Berges." And it was all I could do, not to burst out laughing at that point.  

[00:15:21] Steve: But you obviously got through the interviews without too much problem?

[00:15:27] Bill: Well, I was expecting a lot more probing questions, but I guess he was so, sort of, trusting that John had made the right choice he was just there maybe for a bit of... I guess just to be jovial and trying to completely put us off guard that there was anything untoward.  

[00:15:43] Steve: Incidentally, what was your alibi?

[00:15:45] Bill: My alibi was that I was visiting my parents in Hong Kong, so not too far away from the truth, and that I wanted to go travelling. I'd done a bit of sailing with them and yeah, thought it was a nice way to get down to Australia.

[00:15:58] Steve: So the secret's to find something that's nearly believable.

[00:16:01] Bill: As near as possible, absolutely, it just makes it so much easier.

[00:16:05] Steve: The team of four had secured a place on The Oui. Next step was to prepare for the voyage.

Preparing the boat

[00:16:13] Bill: Rod, during the course of the interview, had really emphasized his credentials, you know, as ex-Merchant Navy and Roberto thought, "Well, actually this is a really useful guy to have around". So he was enlisted to do a lot of the yacht preparation. He was on there helping check the engine, get supplies... meanwhile we were very much just trying to stick to our stories, which was mostly, you know, we were travelling through Hong Kong or whatever. So I was going up to my parents house and living with them, Nick was doing what a traveller would do in Hong Kong as was...as was Debbie. And then Rod... I remember catching up with him and seeing how things were going and I think he was getting a bit fed up because Roberto was basically getting him to do all sorts of heavy duty stuff like he had to go and get all these jerry cans of water and stick them onto the boat.  

[00:17:06] Steve: Part of the plan involved engineering a police patrol boat to magically appear at the right moment to assist with the arrest out at sea. Enter Les Bird.

Les Bird

[00:17:19] Bill: So Les Bird was one of these Hong Kong stalwarts. He'd come out in the mid-seventies and he went into the Marine Police and he ended up in the... they call it the SBU, the Special Boat Unit. A lot of the smuggling was done in these sampans called dai fongs, which were sampans with massive outboards on the back. And they could absolutely hoon across Mirs Bay or wherever they were trying to come into, drop the cargo, hoon out again. So, we had a special fast boat unit that in the dead of night would be racing after these things trying to capture them. it was dangerous stuff.  

[00:18:01] Steve: It's the night before The Oui set sail. So far the plan was near-faultless. No room then for any last minute slip ups.

The night before the bust

[00:18:12] Bill: I went and spent the evening with my family and Nick did a sort of last tour of Hong Kong and Rod ended up down in Stanley which is where the boat had been moved to by this stage and spent the evening there having a few beers and whatever, and bumped into someone he knew. Had to very carefully extricate himself from that situation before anything was given away. So that was quite a hair raising moment for him.

I remember him telling me he was on surveillance once and this person kept moving from bar to bar, and he thought, "Well, I can't keep turning up in each bar that this guy's in, it's going to look a bit suspicious". So he just sat on the pavement, got a couple of tins of beer from a 7-Eleven and just watched all the bars in the area and tried to sort of monitor him that way. And someone he knew walked past him and... contacted his wife and said, "Oh, is Rod alright? I've just seen him sitting on the pavement having a few beers".

Operation Clinker Day

[00:19:17] Steve: In the end the evening passed off without incident. It's the morning of the sting. Rod is on the boat preparing to leave, when rather unexpectedly, along comes Kenny.

[00:19:30] Bill: This was a real last minute thing. And we had no idea this guy was gonna be on the boat. He'd suddenly appeared. Rod was there doing some preliminary stuff to help get ready. So he managed to get away and call me and we could talk through various stuff. This Chinese guy who appeared... we knew he was a triad representative who was there on behalf of the people supplying the drugs to keep an eye on things and report back if anything untoward had happened. If what we assumed was being transported was on the boat, then we assumed that's why he was there. We had to plan what we wanted to do in terms of arming ourselves. We didn't want there to be a... a sort of shootout on a yacht out at sea, but we were convinced, or persuaded shall I say, to take a firearm on board just in case, so Rod actually secreted it in his kit bag.

[00:20:24] Steve: So what did the adjusted plan look like with Kenny in it? You weren't exactly dressed for standard marine police action, were you?

[00:20:35] Bill: Well ,we'd grown beards, I was wearing a sort of a coral necklace and wearing Bermudan shorts and flowery shirts and this sort of thing... wasn't a lot of places where you could hide a pair of handcuffs. So we decided to try and secrete a cable tie in the waistband of our shorts. But then  Kenny appears and we think, "Okay, well, hang on. So now there's three guys that we need to arrest". He's a wiry, muscly chinese guy, but I had no idea what his sort of capability was in terms of whether he was a triad fighter, whether he'd be armed, this sort of thing. So we were discussing all sorts of scenarios and one of them was, well, we might have to just nudge Kenny off the boat, but our concern there was what happened if he couldn't swim? You know, we didn't want to kill the guy.

So, once we were actually on the boat and underway, there was a lot of talking about swimming. And, you know, whether you could swim or this sort of thing, which was all a lead in so Rod could ask Kenny in Cantonese, "Oh, do you swim?" And then we were sort of, once he said, "Yes", we sort of knowingly looked at each other. "Okay, that's... that's good. Plan B can happen.

[00:21:52] Steve: So after fastidious planning, the assembly of the team and one or two near-misses, it was time to set sail.

Setting sail

[00:22:02] Bill: So as soon as we got there, we were off. It was a beautiful sunny day actually and  we're all playing the very excited crew members about to go off on this adventure and a lot of chat and joking and it wasn't hard to act because we were quite nervous anyway. I think we left about two o'clock in the afternoon, so it took us a few hours to get out there.  Dusk came along, and before we knew it, it was dark, and we're quite a long way out now, nearing the Po Toi Islands, which is sort of the last islands before you then leave Hong Kong waters.

Plan for arrest

[00:22:34] Steve: And at what point was the Narcotics Bureau launch expecting to intervene?

[00:22:41] Bill: So the plan was that once it was dark and we were as far out as possible, we would take the yacht. So Rod would arrest Roberto, I would arrest Kenny and John and we would then give the signal. The Narcotics Bureau would see the signal, which was going to be the... The Jolly Roger flag that Rod had made. He was going to hoist it up the mast and as soon as they saw that, they would come in.

The bust begins

[00:23:05] Steve: Somewhere on the edge of the South China Sea, nerves started to jangle as they were approaching the designated spot for action.

[00:23:15] Bill: So I was sitting on the... the aft deck. Kenny was in the cockpit, so I was making sure I was sort of behind him and could keep an eye on him. And I suddenly noticed the Narcotics Bureau launch changing direction and coming towards us. And I thought, "This isn't right, they shouldn't be doing that yet, we haven't given them the signal." Roberto then suddenly sort of stands up and he's looking in the direction of the launch. And he obviously thinks, " This looks a bit strange", so he goes off down below. Rod then kind of looks at me and he thinks, "Okay, don't know what he's doing down there. Maybe his suspicions are aroused. I'd better go and deal with him".

So the next thing I hear is a sort of commotion down below and a loud squawk and no idea what's going on and whether that's Rod in pain or Roberto or... what. But Kenny now is thinking, "What's going on?" And he stands up and he's about to go down below to investigate. And so I think, "Well, it's on".

 So I basically just leapt on him and a 15 stone rugby player from height when you're not expecting it is quite effective. Kenny's now flattened in the cockpit and I'm holding him down and I'm looking up, and the Narcotics Bureau launch comes in rather too fast, careers into the side of the boat, and two or three Narcotics Bureau agents come flying off the front of the boat. One of them, I mean, he was literally thrown off the front of the boat. One engine wasn't working properly so he came in really not under control at all, crashed into the side the boat   and they literally got catapulted off onto The Oui. But this guy, Raymond Lau, just managed to turn it into a perfectly executed commando roll and was up on his feet and taking over on Kenny. So... so yeah, that was a relief.

[00:25:13] Steve: That was Kenny dealt with, but now Bill had to be seen to arrest John, Nick and Debbie.

[00:25:21] Bill: I started arresting John and I sort of, you know, had to sort of rough him up a bit, had to make it look authentic and then had to arrest Nick and Debbie as well. So, we're getting all handcuffed in cable ties. I've stopped the engine at this stage and then Rod emerges with Roberto also handcuffed in cable ties, so he's obviously successfully dealt with him. And we think, "Yep, okay, it's all secured, we're safe now". And so Rod decides to hoist the Jolly Roger anyway, even though it's not needed. And unfortunately he hoists it upside down, whereupon... Nick sort of can't help himself and lets out a little giggle, so I cuff him around the head and tell him to behave and it gives me an excuse to rough him up a bit.

[00:26:04] Steve: With the adrenaline rush subsiding just a little, attention now turned to the not insignificant issue of whether there were actually any drugs on board at all. The enterprise was teetering between roaring success and dismal failure.

Searching for the drugs

[00:26:24] Bill: Now we've got Chief Inspector Howard on the boat who's overseeing the whole operation. He's the big boss and this is his moment. And we start to search the yacht. And other than a couple of suspicious things in Roberto's bag, like... a taser, we don't find anything. No drugs.

[00:26:43] Steve: So, how are you feeling at this point?

[00:26:46] Bill: Concerned. Embarrassed. Yeah, feeling a bit foolish.

 But just as hope was dissipating, Rod remembered the jerry cans that he so unwillingly loaded on the boat during preparation.

 "Why were we taking a load of jerrycans of water? There's water tanks on boats like this", you know, two decent sized water tanks that will get you all the way to Australia easily. So the penny drops and we decide to search the water tanks and we go into the port one and I think there's maybe one or two brick-sized blocks of heroin, about a kilo each. And again we're thinking, " Is that it? Is that what this is all for?" I mean, it's enough to make an arrest but it's not the big coup that we were hoping for. And then they start to search the starboard water tank  and it is rammed with these blocks of heroin. They'd been kept empty, and that's where the drugs were hidden.

[00:27:58] Steve: So put this in perspective: I think I'm right in saying that anything over a kilo is significant, but this was 43 kilograms, so a big bust?

[00:28:10] Bill: Yes it was. It was the biggest drugs haul in any operation in Hong Kong that they'd seen. So it was a lot.

[00:28:20] Steve: One of the key elements of a drugs bust is recording the discovery of the evidence. It's the take-a-bow moment, the lap of honor and essential for a successful prosecution.

[00:28:33] Bill: This is the big moment now. We've discovered the drugs in the water tank and we know there's a lot in there. And so the normal processing, it's all about photographing the evidence, chain of evidence. So, every block that was removed we had to photograph. Chief Inspector Howard's there and this is his big moment. He's pulling each one out and I'm photographing each block as it comes out. About 12 or 13 blocks into it, I suddenly realised there's no film in the camera.  So we have to put them all back in again and re-enact the whole removal of the blocks, photo by photo.

Tidying up loose ends

[00:29:11] Steve: And that was more-or-less the end of the Hong Kong involvement in Operation Clinker, apart from a few loose ends to tie up. Roberto and Kenny were placed under house arrest for the six weeks that it would have taken to sail down to Sydney had their plan not been exposed. A fake consignment of heroin was flown down to Australia and with the help of Roberto and Kenny, The Hong Kong Narcotics Bureau and Australian Federal Police managed to arrest the entire syndicate chain from Hong Kong to Australia.

Bill, how were Roberto and Kenny persuaded to give evidence?

Persuading Roberto and Kenny

[00:29:56] Bill: Well that was... fairly straightforward because they were on a boat with 43 kilos of heroin on it. And they'd been monitored by surveillance and they'd had Hong Kong policemen on their crew. So the chance of them not going down for that were remote. So a deal was struck.  

Operation Clinker Reflections

[00:30:15] Steve: And looking back, how do you reflect on the experience?

[00:30:20] Bill: You know, I've been a bit flippant about it, but at the end of the day that's 43 kilos of a very dangerous substance that destroys people's lives. And to do something like that, and it's probably a fairly small drop in the ocean, but just to take some active steps towards stopping that stuff reaching people who... whose lives it would destroy was a really satisfying thing to do.

[00:30:43] Steve: And that was Operation Clinker. Bill and the team were awarded Commissioner's Commendations. Roberto got 23 years in prison, reduced to 11 for co-operation. As for Kenny, he was never heard of again. Perhaps he couldn't swim after all. Nick and Debbie stayed in the police for a few more years. Rod stayed to retirement. And not long after all the excitement had settled down, Bill returned to the UK via a rugby season in New Zealand to pursue a less risky career in electronics. Today, he leads a quieter life from his home in Putney, a little place on the River Thames on the outskirts of London.

[00:31:29] Bill: I'm actually just working on a boat at the moment that we're hoping to get in the water and take ownership of. So maybe my days of patrolling on a boat will come again. I often see... police launches whizzing down the river at high speed, blue lights flashing, and it always reminds me of those days.

[00:31:46] Steve: Have you checked the water tanks?

[00:31:51] Bill: Always, always. The moral of the story, always check the water tanks.

ATTRIBUTIONS

Dickelbers, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

そらみみ (Soramimi), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons