Police Inspector Baek Hae-ryong, who has alleged "outside pressure on customs' drug investigation," applied on the 9th for search and seizure warrants for the Prosecutors' Office and Incheon Airport Customs, among others. The move came right after the joint investigation team on alleged customs involvement in meth smuggling at the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office, to which Baek belongs, said it had cleared customs officials and other figures suspected of exerting pressure.
In a statement, Inspector Baek said he applied to the court for search and seizure of three customs offices (Incheon Airport Customs, Gimhae Customs, and Seoul Main Customs) and three prosecutors' offices (Incheon District Prosecutors' Office, Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, and the Supreme Prosecutors' Office).
Inspector Baek said, "There is an abundance of circumstantial evidence that customs took part in the Malaysian drug organization's meth smuggling," adding, "This is sufficiently substantiated in the prosecution's case records." He continued, "The records also show in several places that prosecutors recognized that customs were involved in the drug organization's smuggling operation, covered up the case, and even effectively abetted the smuggling."
Baek's announcement came immediately after the joint investigation team released an interim result saying it had decided not to indict seven customs officials who were subjects of the allegations. The joint investigation team said, "The suspicions, which began with false testimony by a drug smuggler, turned out to be groundless."
The joint investigation team is broadly divided into Prosecutor Yun Guk-gwon's team and Inspector Baek's team. Whether to seek court approval for the search and seizure warrants sought by Baek's team is decided by the head of the joint investigation team. As Yun's team judged most of the related allegations to be groundless and issued no-indictment dispositions on the same day, observers say the likelihood of requesting the warrants is not high.