The United States (US) Homeland Security Investigations Attaché for Hong Kong, Macau & Taiwan, Mr Christopher Pater, and his team presented a plaque to a group of Crime officers of New Territories South Region (CRM NTS) on February 8 in recognition of their outstanding performance in facilitating a request for mutual legal assistance. Regional Commander of NTS Lui Hon-kwok and Deputy Regional Commander of NTS Patrick Laidler led the Crime officers to attend the presentation ceremony.

In 2014, Team 3B of the Regional Crime Unit of NTS arrested a Hong Kong man for "Possession of Firearms and Ammunition without License" with a number of firearms and ammunition seized at various locations in the territory. Investigation revealed that the illegal commodities were imported from an US firearms supplier. After analysis, Team 3B passed the intelligence to their US counterpart for parallel investigations. The US authorities filed a request for legal assistance for arranging six witnesses to give testimony and present evidence at the US court. The four American defendants were convicted and sentenced to imprisonment.

Mr Pater said that this was a textbook case of co-operation of the law enforcement authorities in the two jurisdictions. He thanked the Hong Kong Police Force, and highly commended the professionalism of the officers concerned.