190,000 Illegal Overseas Direct Purchase Items Including TVs Seized... Estimated Value 46.8 Billion Won

A digital camera that was smuggled into the country through overseas direct purchase and intended for distribution in the market was seized by customs authorities. Photo by Korea Customs Service

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Customs authorities have caught 190,000 items of overseas direct purchase goods brought into the country by abusing personal duty-free regulations. The market value of the seized goods amounts to approximately 46.8 billion KRW.

The Korea Customs Service announced on the 14th that it conducted a special crackdown on overseas direct purchase offenders from September to November and identified 28 companies (including individuals) that abused personal overseas direct purchase duty-free regulations.

The main types of violations by these companies include price manipulation by purchasing agents, customs evasion through underreporting, and illegal importation of goods harmful to public health.

Smuggling was carried out using the list clearance method, where items exceeding $150 such as wireless headphones and virtual reality (VR) goggles were falsely declared to customs as being under $150 to exempt them from import declaration. Using this method, the companies smuggled 45,260 items in 23 cases, with a market value of approximately 15.3 billion KRW.

This is a case of abusing the rule that goods under $150 (or $200 if imported from the United States) for personal use can be cleared duty-free without import declaration.

Additionally, price manipulation by purchasing agents involved companies receiving payment from buyers including customs duties and value-added tax, but declaring a lower import price during customs declaration to evade taxes while importing items such as TVs and wireless headphones into the country.

Through this method, the companies imported 93,925 items in 3 cases, with a market value of approximately 29.1 billion KRW.

Furthermore, some of the identified companies imported baseball goods from Japan through overseas direct purchase and sold them to domestic consumers while underreporting the import declaration price compared to the actual price (5,605 items in 2 cases, worth approximately 680 million KRW). Others disguised U.S.-made health supplements as personal consumption items to import them without approval and sold them on their own online shopping malls (16,756 items in 4 cases, with a market value of approximately 500 million KRW).

A Korea Customs Service official stated, “When making overseas direct purchases, we urge consumers to verify the authenticity of import declaration certificates and check various certifications and item-specific risk information on relevant agency websites. In particular, if you purchase overseas direct purchase goods at prices including customs duties and VAT, please be aware that you may be held jointly responsible with the purchasing agent if the agent underreports the price to customs.”

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