Police Declare 'War on Drugs'... Deploy All Detectives Nationwide

Intensive Crackdown to Prevent Distribution Spread
Organized Supply Offenders... Application of Group Crime Charges

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] The National Police Agency's National Investigation Headquarters announced on the 27th that it will conduct a nationwide intensive crackdown on drug offenders for three months from next month until May.

This crackdown will involve not only 1,150 dedicated drug personnel from each provincial police agency and frontline police stations but also all detectives nationwide. The main targets of the crackdown are ▲ drug smuggling offenders organized by criminal groups ▲ non-face-to-face distribution offenders using the internet (dark web) and virtual assets ▲ distribution and drug use by foreign residents in Korea.

This crackdown is a measure in response to the recent increase in drug offenders. According to the police, an average of 10,048 drug offenders have been arrested annually over the past five years. The number of drug offenders was 8,887 in 2017 and slightly decreased to 8,107 in 2018, but then increased to 10,411 in 2019 and 12,209 in 2020. Although it decreased to 10,626 last year, the amount of methamphetamine seized increased more than twice from 24.5 kg the previous year to 65.5 kg. The police explained, "We believe that drugs have deeply permeated our society," and added, "We decided to promote this intensive crackdown focusing on supply offenders to fundamentally block drugs."

The police plan to apply the crime of organizing a criminal group under the Criminal Act from the early stages of investigation for organized drug distribution activities in this crackdown, aiming to dismantle organizations through aggravated punishment. They also plan to block the channels of criminal proceeds at the source through seizure and confiscation before prosecution.

The application of organized crime charges against drug offenders by the police has been gradually increasing recently. Previously, the Incheon Police Agency's Drug Crime Investigation Division applied organized crime charges when arresting 35 drug organization members who sold smuggled drugs worth 900 million won, including methamphetamine, through social networking services (SNS). The Gyeonggi Nambu Police Agency's International Crime Investigation Division also applied organized crime charges against 53 Korean-Russian drug organization members who manufactured and sold 6.3 kg of synthetic marijuana.

The police also plan to respond strongly to simple drug use by foreign residents occurring mainly in areas densely populated by foreigners. In addition, they plan to maintain a comprehensive response system throughout the entire process of case handling, including intelligence collection and tracking investigations, in cooperation with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, the Korea Customs Service, and others, to strengthen frontline investigative capabilities. The police said, "We provide rewards for reporting drug crimes and thoroughly protect the identity of informants, so we ask citizens for active reporting."

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