Under 'Jeongal Packaging,' 1 Million Doses of Cocaine Found... "Street Value Estimated at 105 Billion Won"

Cocaine worth approximately 100 billion KRW, enough for 1 million people to use simultaneously, was seized from a foreign-flagged container ship that arrived at Busan New Port. Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Hana Na] Approximately 1 million doses worth 105 billion KRW of cocaine were discovered on a foreign-flagged container ship that arrived at Busan New Port.

The South Sea Regional Coast Guard announced on the 6th that on January 19th, they seized 35 kg of cocaine valued at 105 billion KRW from the Liberia-flagged 140,000-ton container ship A, which docked at Pier 2 of Busan New Port in Gangseo-gu, Busan.

The discovered cocaine was divided into 35 boxes, each covered with packaging bearing the name "exito" (meaning "success" in Spanish), a major Colombian supermarket brand, and a scorpion emblem used by the Colombian drug cartel "Cali Cartel."

Earlier, the Coast Guard received a tip that a large quantity of cocaine was hidden in the steering room (the place where the ship's direction is controlled) at the stern of ship A, which departed from Colombia in South America, passed through Panama, and was heading to Korea. They tracked the shipping company and the vessel's route accordingly.

With a search and seizure warrant, the Coast Guard confiscated 35 boxes of cocaine, each weighing 1 kg, secretly hidden in the steering room of ship A, which had arrived at Busan New Port, in cooperation with customs officials.

At the time, 24 crew members from Greece, Russia, and Ukraine were on board ship A; there were no Korean crew members. Ship A was confirmed to be a regular vessel traveling between the United States, Colombia, the Panama Canal, South Korea, and China.

The Coast Guard is currently analyzing fingerprints and DNA of the crew members to investigate their involvement and to trace the distribution routes of the narcotics.

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