Illegal Import of Veterinary Medical Devices 'Without Authorization' Caught Veterinarian Red-Handed

A veterinarian who illegally imported animal medical devices without approval was caught in a customs crackdown.

The Seoul Regional Customs Office of the Korea Customs Service announced on the 12th that it had identified four veterinarians suspected of violating the Customs Act and Medical Device Act and referred them to the prosecution.

According to Seoul Customs, these veterinarians are suspected of purchasing 490 animal medical devices (worth about 300 million KRW) without import approval from overseas medical device sales websites between February 2020 and November last year, and using them for several years in their own animal hospitals for treating companion animals with heart surgery, vascular angioplasty, and other procedures.

The purchased animal medical devices included stents (STENT) and catheters (CATHETER), but the veterinarians declared them under different product names such as medical device parts to evade the import approval certification process by the Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency. They also lowered the declared import price to about 1/100 of the actual purchase price to evade customs duties.

A Seoul Customs official stated, “As the number of households raising companion animals increases, interest in disease prevention and treatment for companion animals has also risen. Riding this trend, the risk of illegal importation of animal pharmaceuticals and medical devices is also growing.”

He added, “Customs will strengthen crackdowns to eradicate the illegal importation of animal medical devices going forward.”

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