Do You Know About the 'Purple Wanted' Instead of the Red Wanted?

Gangwon Land Theft Trio to Be Charged
'International Crime' Method Shared Among Interpol Member Countries
Korean Police Filed 3 Cases Since 2018

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-joo] On the afternoon of the 7th, three foreigners wearing masks entered Kangwon Land in Jeongseon-gun, Gangwon Province. They appeared to be enjoying the casino normally, but four hours later, their true colors were revealed. They sat in front of a slot machine with few users. One of them used a 'master key' to open the slot machine and took out a cash box containing 24 million won, while the other two blocked the surrounding view. The crime took only five minutes. They calmly left Kangwon Land and departed the next day at dawn through Incheon International Airport.

Among the trio, two Peruvians headed to Spain via Bangkok, Thailand, and Doha, Qatar. The Foreign Affairs Bureau of the National Police Agency, having gathered information, swiftly conducted an international cooperative investigation and arrested them at Madrid Airport, Spain, on the 12th of this month. The police are also pursuing the other individual, a Hong Kong national.

Upon confirming the circumstances of an 'international crime,' the National Police Agency initiated follow-up measures. They decided to apply for an Interpol 'purple notice' to inform about the criminal method used in this case. The purple notice is one of the eight types of Interpol notices, alongside the 'red notice' for serious criminals. While the red notice is for locating individuals, the purple notice shares the 'modus operandi' of specific cases with 194 member countries. This aims to prevent the same crimes from occurring in other countries, especially in cases involving multinational individuals or international crimes.

The number of purple notice applications by Korean police is gradually increasing. Since the first application in 2018, there have been a total of three cases in the past two years, including two last year. A representative case involving a purple notice was the largest ever methamphetamine smuggling incident in October 2018. The drug trafficking organization arrested at that time smuggled 112 kg of methamphetamine (worth about 370 billion won), enough for 3 million simultaneous doses, hidden inside screw manufacturing equipment from Bangkok Port, Thailand, to Busan Port. Notably, this case revealed the involvement of violent organizations from Taiwan and Japan in an international drug crime. The National Police Agency shared the smuggling methods with Interpol member countries to strengthen drug crime responses. The other two cases are known to involve criminal methods related to voice phishing organization arrests.

The increase in purple notice applications means that South Korea can no longer be free from international crime. On the other hand, since it is difficult to prevent international crime by the power of a single country alone, it also shows that the Korean police are actively engaging in security cooperation as one of the key security centers. A National Police Agency official explained, "We understand that there are about 900 purple notices issued so far. When purple notices come from other countries, we also receive related information to use in preventing and investigating international crimes."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.