Prosecutor's Special Investigation Team Sends 16 Including Sellers to Trial
The prosecution has uncovered a domestic drug shopping site with 4,000 members and referred sellers and suppliers to trial.
The Special Investigation Team on Drug Crimes of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (Team Leader Kim Boseong, Chief Prosecutor) announced that from June 2022 to last month, they identified 16 individuals from six groups who distributed marijuana worth a total of 860 million KRW, including 7.8 kg of marijuana, 208 ml of synthetic marijuana, and 98 liquid marijuana cartridges, through a specialized drug trading site, arresting and indicting 12 of them and indicting 4 without detention.
Photo of a drug advertisement on the dark web provided by the prosecution. [Image source=Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office]
They used the only domestic drug trading site operating on the so-called 'Dark Web.' Sellers paid a registration fee of 1.5 million KRW, posted sales advertisements, and buyers selected their preferred drugs and paid with virtual assets. The sellers then informed buyers of the locations where the drugs had been pre-hidden, enabling contactless transactions.
The operator acted as an intermediary by relaying order and payment details to sellers and settling payments with them after transactions were completed. It is reported that the operator charged about a 20% brokerage fee per transaction. This shopping platform, operating in Korean, connected various sellers and buyers for illegal drug transactions in an open market format.
Like a typical shopping platform, there was also a review board where buyers could post feedback. Investigations revealed that 13 seller groups were active on this shopping mall, with a total membership of 3,962.
The Dark Web made it difficult to trace IP addresses, and there were no direct transaction or call records between operators, sellers, and buyers, making it hard to identify individuals involved. However, the Dark Web Special Investigation Team within the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office collected evidence from multiple angles over about 10 months, tracking and arresting six seller groups. Through scientific investigations such as analyzing virtual asset transaction records, they confirmed that these groups conducted 759 drug transactions over the past two years. Chief Prosecutor Kim said, “The number of transactions we confirmed by capturing sellers and reconstructing transaction records is just that amount; we believe many more transactions took place.”
The Dark Web Special Investigation Team was effectively disbanded after the 2021 adjustment of investigative authority between the prosecution and police, which reduced the prosecution’s drug investigation rights, but it was revived in February this year after those rights were restored.
Prosecutors found that these individuals smuggled drugs worth about 900 million KRW, directly cultivated marijuana, and manufactured liquid marijuana. They also seized drugs worth approximately 1.058 billion KRW, including 4.4 kg of marijuana, 36 g of cocaine, and 10 g of ketamine. Investigations into the remaining seven seller groups, site operators, and users are ongoing. The server will also be tracked to shut down the site.
Since news of the investigation by the prosecution and police broke, daily site visitors have dropped to a few dozen. Chief Prosecutor Kim said, “The market, which was mainly on the Dark Web, has partly moved to other social networking services (SNS) like Telegram. We will continue to actively crack down on internet drug crimes to restore the status of a drug-free country.”
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