Underwater Drones Deployed for Drug Raids... 100.5 Billion Won Budget Allocated for 'Complete Sweep' [2025 Budget Plan]

For Crackdown on Ship Smuggling... Increasing Drug Detection Dogs to 140
213 Billion Won Allocated for Border Blockade, 2.6 Billion Won for Distribution Eradication

The domestic budget for drug interdiction has surpassed 100 billion KRW. This is because warning signs have been raised that if the spread of drugs is not curbed, the "normalization of drugs" will be inevitable.

On the 27th, the Ministry of Economy and Finance announced the '2025 Budget Proposal' containing this information. Next year's drug-related budget is 100.5 billion KRW, an increase of 19.6 billion KRW (24.2%) from this year's 81 billion KRW. This includes 21.3 billion KRW for drug border interdiction, 2.6 billion KRW for distribution eradication, and 11.8 billion KRW for prevention and publicity.

The government will introduce three 'underwater drones' to prevent drug smuggling via ships. Recently, overseas drug organizations have been hiding drugs in suction ports that draw in water beneath ships, and since it is difficult for divers to directly inspect these areas, the plan is to detect them using drones.

Additionally, intelligence has been received that drug organizations, which mainly operated in Thailand, have moved to Vietnam or Malaysia due to strengthened crackdowns, and international cooperation with investigators from those countries will be expanded. The number of drug detection dogs, which play a key role in apprehending drug offenders, will be increased from 90 to 140, and the drug detection dog training center will be expanded.

Drugs already smuggled into the country will be blocked according to distribution channels. The dark web, where drug transactions occur, will be monitored 24/7 using artificial intelligence (AI), and virtual assets, the main payment method, will be blocked using tracking services. Budgets will be allocated for detection investigation equipment, simple reagent kits, and drug offender inquiry and tracking systems to enable rapid drug crackdowns.

An official from the Ministry of Economy and Finance said, "There are many criticisms that Korea is no longer a drug-free country, and since drugs have a significant negative impact on our society, we have intensively increased the budget necessary not only for preventing the spread of drugs but also for blocking inflow and enforcement."

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