Ketamine discovered within the baggage of a overseas nationwide at Gimpo Worldwide Airport in April / Courtesy of Gimpo Airport Customs Workplace
Korean customs authorities stated Friday they’ve seized a document excessive of almost 3,000 kilograms of unlawful medicine on the border to date this yr.
A complete of two,913 kilograms of narcotics have been confiscated within the January-October interval, almost 4 occasions the quantity throughout the identical interval final yr, in line with the Korea Customs Service (KCS).
Air vacationers accounted for the biggest variety of confiscations, with 505 instances, and important volumes have been additionally smuggled by means of specific cargo shipments and worldwide mail, the company stated.
Southeast Asia stays the first supply of drug inflows, with latest will increase traced to Cambodia and Laos, in line with KCS.
“As a result of most unlawful medicine distributed domestically originate from abroad smuggling, we’ll transfer rapidly to strengthen preemptive border-control measures,” KCS Commissioner Lee Myeong-ku stated.
To bolster its crackdown, the company stated it would launch joint operations with the ten international locations the place essentially the most trafficking has been detected.
Along with current cooperation with Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, the USA and the Netherlands, the brand new record will embrace Cambodia, Laos, Canada, Germany and France.
Below the plan, the international locations will station customs officers in one another’s border places of work to collectively display high-risk vacationers and cargo.
KCS stated it has additionally agreed with Cambodia to hold out coordinated anti-smuggling operations following an emergency assembly between the 2 sides.
Korea has imposed a journey ban and raised advisories for Cambodian cities after a surge in such on-line rip-off crimes and different drug-related crimes.
