Seizure of Approximately 40kg of Drugs
The police have arrested a group involved in smuggling various drugs through Telegram and distributing them nationwide.
On the 9th, the Gangdong Police Station in Seoul announced that they had arrested 70 people on charges of violating the Narcotics Control Act (manufacturing, selling, transporting, possessing, and using drugs), and 41 of them were detained. Three suspects who smuggled raw materials and manufactured drugs are Vietnamese nationals, while the rest are Korean. They are accused of smuggling various drugs such as methamphetamine or importing raw materials to produce synthetic drugs, and distributing, storing, transporting, and promoting them using Telegram from September 4 last year to June 20 this year.
These individuals, who had no prior acquaintance, conspired through Telegram and conducted transactions in a non-face-to-face manner while concealing their identities. They sent the location of specific places to couriers hired via Telegram, had them divide and hide the drugs, received payments from buyers through bank transfer accounts of major coin companies or Bitcoin, and then sent the location where the drugs were hidden, thereby distributing the drugs.
The police began a full-scale investigation after receiving a 112 report on September 3 last year about "a young man burying something suspicious in an apartment flowerbed." At the scene, they found white powder contained in a balloon. Using nearby CCTV, they secured footage and descriptions of the young man’s crime and tracked his escape route, leading to the urgent arrest of courier A in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province. Subsequently, through electronic data analysis of A’s mobile phone, they identified non-face-to-face transaction locations and arrested multiple Telegram drug sales masterminds.
The police seized about 40 kg of drugs and Bitcoin worth approximately 10 million won in sales proceeds from the suspects’ residences and hideouts. They have issued an arrest warrant for the drug distribution mastermind who has left for the Philippines and are tracking drug channel operators, couriers, and buyers who have not yet been caught domestically.
A police official said, “This investigation dealt a significant blow to the drug distribution market using Telegram channels, which extended like a chain to the merchant ships, and achieved a major success in blocking the distribution of large quantities of drugs in the market.” He added, "We will concentrate our investigative capabilities on drug distribution crimes that devastate the nation’s mental health and well-being, pursuing and punishing them to the end.”
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
