Over 370,000 Illegal Overseas Direct Purchase Items Caught by Customs Amid 'Gwanggunje·Black Friday' Rush

During major discount events such as China's Guanggun Festival and the United States' Black Friday, customs authorities seized approximately 370,000 items that were illegally brought into the country by taking advantage of the increased volume of overseas direct purchases.

The Korea Customs Service announced on the 28th that it conducted a focused crackdown on illegal overseas direct purchase activities from October 30 to November 28, seizing illegal overseas direct purchase goods worth approximately 68.8 billion KRW (about 370,000 items).

Counterfeit products seized during a crackdown on illegal overseas direct purchases are displayed. Photo by Korea Customs Service

The focused crackdown was carried out around the Guanggun Festival on the 11th and Black Friday on the 25th of last month to prevent the distribution of illegal and fraudulent imported goods in the domestic market and to protect consumers from damage.

The types of illegal overseas direct purchases detected during the crackdown included ▲ smuggling of goods for sale disguised as personal use (20 cases, worth about 14.8 billion KRW) ▲ dispersed smuggling using others' names (12 cases, worth about 4.3 billion KRW) ▲ customs duty evasion through proxy purchasing (3 cases, worth about 6.2 billion KRW) ▲ smuggling of counterfeit goods from China (2 cases, worth about 43.5 billion KRW).

The seized items mainly consisted of ▲ food, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics (250,000 items, worth about 16.1 billion KRW) ▲ miscellaneous goods such as bags and shoes (92,000 items, worth about 40.9 billion KRW) ▲ electrical and electronic products (25,000 items, worth about 4.1 billion KRW) ▲ sports and leisure goods (10,000 items, worth about 7.7 billion KRW).

During the focused crackdown period, the Korea Customs Service closely monitored the online distribution of illegal and fraudulent imported goods in cooperation with 15 major e-commerce companies including Naver, 11st, Interpark, and Kakao.

Through this effort, the Korea Customs Service identified 43,198 posts suspected of intellectual property rights infringement and harmful food and pharmaceuticals, taking measures such as suspending sales or deleting and modifying posts, and suspended the accounts of 424 illegal sellers.

A Korea Customs Service official stated, “We will strengthen analysis of overseas direct purchase abuse cases and planned crackdowns to ensure that honest consumers do not suffer damages. As overseas direct purchases have become commonplace, we urge consumers to actively report any illegal activities abusing overseas direct purchases to the Korea Customs Service.”