The government joint investigation headquarters for eradicating drug crimes was launched on the 21st. It is expected to serve as a "Korean-style Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)" by bringing together everything from investigation, crackdowns, and intelligence gathering to treatment and prevention personnel.
The Supreme Prosecutors' Office said it launched the Government Joint Investigation Headquarters on Drug Crimes on this day, composed of 86 investigators and enforcement personnel on drug crimes from eight agencies — the prosecution, police, Korea Customs Service, Korea Coast Guard, Seoul Metropolitan Government, Korea Immigration Service, National Intelligence Service (NIS), and Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) — and installed it at the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office.
The headquarters was born from the recognition that, as multiple agencies handled drug cases, investigative authority and criminal intelligence were dispersed across agencies and there was a lack of swift information sharing by agency, creating limits in responding to drug crimes. Accordingly, it will function as a "pan-government investigation control tower" that consolidates into a single organization the drug-crime investigation, crackdowns, and intelligence capabilities and the administrative capabilities for treatment, rehabilitation, and prevention that had been dispersed across agencies. It plans to focus intensive responses on all types of drug crimes spanning supply, distribution, and consumption.
The headquarters is organized with a total of 86 personnel: 42 from the prosecution (prosecutors and investigators), 33 from the police, and 11 from related agencies including the Korea Customs Service, Korea Coast Guard, Korea Immigration Service, National Intelligence Service (NIS), FIU, and the Seoul Metropolitan Government.
However, the head of the headquarters, a position for a chief prosecutor, is currently vacant. Park Jae-eok, former Suwon District Prosecutors' Office chief, had initially been tapped, but after the "Daejang-dong appeal withdrawal" situation, a resignation was submitted and a new head has not been secured. Accordingly, Busan District Prosecutors' Office First Deputy Chief Prosecutor Shin Jun-ho, who will serve as the first deputy head of the headquarters, is serving as acting head. Shin previously served as head of the Narcotics and Organized Crime Division at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, head of the Violent Crime Investigation Department at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, and director of narcotics and organized crime planning at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, and is an expert in violent crime and drug investigations.
Under the head, with the first deputy head and the second deputy head (superintendent general) at the center, there will be four prosecutor offices, seven investigation teams (smuggling, distribution, and cybercrime investigations), one investigation support team, and two special crackdown teams (high-risk facilities and foreigners).
After crime intelligence from the investigation support team and joint crackdowns by the special crackdown teams, the investigation teams will open investigations, and the prosecutor offices will receive the cases, conduct supplementary investigations, and handle case processing. In addition, overseas-dispatched personnel from each agency will join the international cooperation team, and policy departments related to treatment, rehabilitation, and prevention — including the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and the Ministry of Education — will participate in the crime prevention team to provide external support for the headquarters' work.
Specifically, the smuggling crime investigation team will organize the international cooperation team with personnel dispatched overseas by each agency and expand the "source-targeting international cooperation system" (SOP, a system that targets the source of drug smuggling) to track overseas shippers and arrest and repatriate key targets. The distribution and cybercrime investigation teams will mobilize all distribution-information systems, including the prosecution's internet drug-crime intelligence acquisition system and the police's Nuricops, to investigate distribution offenders.
The special crackdown teams will establish a standing enforcement system to prepare for the spread of narcotics in high-risk areas such as entertainment districts during the year-end and New Year period, and the prosecutor offices, through the externally supporting crime prevention team, will conduct treatment and rehabilitation and carry out publicity and prevention activities.
Recently, as drug distribution has shifted to a non-face-to-face, online model linking international smuggling organizations with domestic distribution networks, narcotics offenders have surged. In particular, as online drug "transactions," including via social media (SNS) and the dark web, have become commonplace, offenders in their teens to 30s who are accustomed to this have surged, accounting for about 60% of all drug offenders (14,645 last year).
An official at the headquarters said, "Believing this is the last 'golden time' to eradicate drug crimes, we will do our best so that Korea can regain its status as a drug-free nation."