"Corporate Luxury Smuggling Ring with Only Thousands of SNS Followers Caught"

Smuggling of Over 2,400 Luxury Items Worth 4 Billion Won
Meticulous Laundering of Departure Points and More

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo Je-hoon] Operators of an overseas luxury goods purchasing site and couriers who smuggled approximately 4 billion KRW worth of luxury goods using family, acquaintances, and employees have been apprehended.

Incheon Main Customs Office announced on the 3rd that it has reported to the prosecution the mastermind, Mr. Lee, who smuggled a total of 2,416 items including bags, shoes, clothing, and watches from famous overseas brands such as Chanel, Herm?s, Louis Vuitton, Moncler, and Cartier, along with 11 couriers, for violating customs laws.

According to Incheon Customs, the mastermind Mr. Lee, who has tens of thousands of followers on social networking services (SNS), traveled to Europe with family, employees, and acquaintances to purchase high-priced luxury goods pre-ordered by domestic buyers through Instagram, KakaoTalk, and Naver Blog. They sent large packaging cases separately as cargo via international express delivery, carried only the contents when entering the country, voluntarily declared only part of the items to customs and paid taxes, while smuggling most of the high-value goods without declaration.

In particular, they exploited the fact that customs inspections on flights from Europe, where many luxury goods are imported, are stringent by laundering the country of departure through transit in other countries, educating couriers on customs declaration methods, and conducting mock drills, demonstrating meticulous efforts to evade customs surveillance, according to customs officials.

Furthermore, they included customs duties and value-added tax in the sales price for buyers and posted receipts of customs declarations for some items on blogs, deceiving consumers into believing the smuggled goods were legally cleared items, customs officials added.

Incheon Customs is continuing investigations on the remaining nine couriers.

Incheon Customs stated, "With the recent increase in overseas luxury goods purchases through online transactions, we are strengthening monitoring of SNS," and urged, "Since some couriers were found to have committed illegal acts enticed by free trips to Europe, citizens should also remain vigilant."

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