The Korea Customs Service said on the 27th that starting in April this year it tracked drugs entering through postal concentration centers and, by July, uncovered a total of 10 drug cases and arrested 100% of the drug offenders.
According to the Korea Customs Service, of the 10 cases it uncovered, five were smuggled through the Anyang concentration center, two each through the Bucheon and Daejeon concentration centers, and one through the East Seoul concentration center. Of those, customs investigated nine cases on its own and, using methods such as controlled delivery, recorded a 100% arrest rate for smugglers. Controlled delivery is a method in which customs, under investigators' surveillance, delivers seized illegal drugs to arrest the actual recipient.
The Korea Customs Service said that with a total of 39 narcotics investigation teams and 325 special judicial police officers conducting drug investigations, it investigated 859 out of 954 detected cases totaling 1,054 kilograms by July and referred them to prosecutors. The Korea Customs Service said, "If we assume 0.03 grams is a single dose, 1,054 kilograms is a scale that about 35 million people could take."
On this day, the Korea Customs Service also introduced a representative case. The Seoul Customs Office arrested a U.S. national suspect who hid four cannabis cartridges in coffee bags, sent them via international mail to a famous hotel in Korea, then entered the country like an ordinary tourist and tried to pick them up at the hotel.
The Seoul Customs Office detected the cannabis cartridges at the East Seoul postal concentration center. It then worked immediately with related agencies, including the immigration office, to confirm the suspect's entry into Korea, travel route, and lodging information. Finally, it conducted a controlled delivery and arrested the suspect at the scene when the suspect received the mail.
The suspect reportedly planned the crime by designating the hotel where the suspect would stay as the recipient address for international mail to send the drugs in advance, thereby eliminating the risk of detection when carrying them in person.
Lee Jong-uk, commissioner of the Korea Customs Service, said, "We will establish barriers to drug smuggling across all entry routes, including not only international mail but also imported cargo, express cargo, travelers, and crew of merchant ships," adding, "We are not stopping at detecting drugs at the border stage but are tracking and arresting the final domestic consumers and the organizations behind them based on a variety of drug investigation techniques."