Korea Customs Service: "Unified Team of Five Ministries Blocks 110,000 Hazardous Items at the Border"

Five government ministries formed a unified team and achieved significant results in blocking the entry of large quantities of hazardous goods at the border. It is assessed that integrating and sharing information that was previously scattered across agencies, and responding jointly, led to these tangible outcomes.

The Korea Customs Service announced the results of the “Collaborative Information Team” over the past year on August 27. The Collaborative Information Team consisted of five staff members dispatched from four agencies-the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, and the Trade Security Management Agency-who worked together at the Customs Border Risk Management Center under the Korea Customs Service.

Illegal goods seized by customs are spilling out of a sack. Photo is unrelated to the article. Courtesy of Korea Customs Service.

Since its launch in August last year, the team has blocked 110,000 illegal or hazardous imported items (worth approximately 16 billion won) at the border over the past year. This achievement is the result of integrating and sharing risk information held by each agency and jointly analyzing risks by leveraging the expertise of each organization.

Major detected items include 8,832 strollers and bicycles with falsified safety certification (KC) numbers, 10,814 Chinese-made portable batteries with inflated capacity labels, and high-performance AI semiconductors (worth 900 million won) that were to be exported without the required permits.

The Collaborative Information Team blocked the entry of illegal and hazardous goods at the border through cooperation among relevant agencies. For example, to prevent the illegal import of internationally endangered species, the team shared risk information with related organizations such as the National Institute of Biological Resources, and strengthened import requirement checks and selective inspections.

In June, the team linked the voluntary recall company database of the National Institute of Technology and Standards to the Korea Customs Service system, and established a real-time connection system for 14 types of risk information data held by the four participating agencies, including the Ministry of Environment.

Additionally, there are plans to build an “image-based mobile smart system” within the year, which will connect the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety’s database to customs officers’ mobile inspection devices. This will allow instant verification of the presence of 297 types of harmful ingredients by photographing food ingredient labels. The Korea Customs Service expects that using this system will reduce the time required for import inspections by more than 95% compared to the current process.

In particular, the Korea Customs Service is also pursuing amendments to the Customs Act to expand the scope of information that can be shared among relevant agencies. The aim is to add “items for which applications for export/import permits have been refused or returned” to the list of items for which the Korea Customs Service can request information from other central administrative agencies, thereby preemptively blocking illegal attempts to evade export/import bans and regulations.

The Korea Customs Service explains that expanding the scope of information shared among agencies will enable more effective responses to tactics such as bypassing export/import regulations via third countries, declaring items under non-regulated HS codes, or submitting false declarations of product names or trading parties.

Jung Kucheon, Director of the Customs Border Risk Management Center, stated, “The Collaborative Information Team will continue to prioritize public health and social safety, strengthen inter-agency cooperation, and focus on blocking illegal and hazardous goods.”

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