According to the Korea Customs Service, there were 184 instances of drugs being seized last year, a 15% jump from the year before.
All told, some 27.8kg of drugs were seized, a nice 29% increase from the year before.
Crystal meth, the ROK’s drug of choice, accounted for 96 busts, or roughly half. There were 63 seizures of marijuana, accounting for 34% of seizures.
Now, for the fun part. Of the 225 smugglers caught, the nationalities break down like this:
Koreans: 144
Americans: 18
Chinese: 15
Canadians: 12
Filipinos: 12
Professions, you ask? Well, 23% were unemployed, 10% were self-employed and 10% were foreign English teachers. To go a bit more into that last category, 22 foreign English teachers were caught bringing drugs into Korea, doubling the 2006 number of 11. By nationality, it broke down thusly:
8 Americans
8 Canadians
4 Brits
1 Australian
The preferred smuggling method turned out to be — you guess it — international mail, at 63%.
36 Comments
Well, at least mailing grass, however stupid, isn’t going to do anyone harm.
Crystal Meth on the other hand is an entirely different kettle of fish. Probably the most damaging of all the hard drugs, once somone gets amphetamine psychosis they’re fucked for life. I spoke to guy once in a drug rehab clinic for a feature story who had been in jail for robbing people to get money for his meth habit. Inside he used to smash every mirror and light he saw because he was convinced there were cameras behind the glass watching him. Used to see ghosts etc, and now he can’t function without a heavy dose of tranquilisers. His brain is fried. A doctor at a hospital also told me that it was far worse than heroine for side-effects, violence, etc.
Not the best “drug of choice” for a country if you ask me.
Lazy police work. 225 people for 185 separate incidents is 1.2 arrests per bust. Hardly what is required to break up distribution networks.
With some judicious use of waterboarding they should be able to charge at least half a dozen people per package siezed.
That’s just it. They don’t have any strategy for breaking up networks. They don’t want to unless it is a group of foreigners who deal with and smoke up with each other. That makes for some sensational headlines and they get to look like they are working hard to stop the bad guys from corrupting Korea.
The police are generally interested in busting as many users as they can because, and I have to state that this is not fact because I don’t want to be sued, they get a one million Won bonus for each user they bust. That’s what I was told.
They don’t seem at all interested in busting any kingpins or major distribution networks. There may be some big reason for that- bribery(again not stating that as fact).
Western police strategy:
Get ahold some users or bust some small time dealers, then lean on them to roll over on the big dealer(s). Gather info on the organization, move up the ladder and try to get each one to roll over on the people above them.
Korean police strategy:
Bust some users and lean on them to write a list of every person they smoked with so the police can bust them, too.
They will ask where the person got the drugs, but they don’t really look into the higher ups in the major distribution network.
They just go out and try to round up more users so they can make headlines and get some more of that (alleged) bonus money.
Benicio74, ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.The Korean police could only dream of controlling the flow of narcotics like the police control it in the US and Canada. Did someone smoke some crack before writing a comment?
…especially since terrorist nations rely on the sale of chemical narcotics to discreetly fund convert military operations.
@ #6
are you suggesting that if Korean police actually wanted to control drug use and worked their up way to the kingpins gathering evidence the way the FBI does it, that they would bump into North Korea in the supply chain and a lot of other ugly stuff to tarnish the my-happy-brother-who-lives-in-the-North image which is so persistent here??
#5, my point was that cops in the West want to go after the kingpins and distribution networks. Korean cops just seem to want to go after the users.
Though both are generally failures, if one were really attempting to stop drugs, what would be the smarter choice?
I’m a decriminization proponent myself.
#8, I am a proponent of decrim as well. Sin taxes are the best kind of tax.
Someone once made mention of people growing opium poppies in their yards. I wonder if the police go after the homegrown drugs?
Sure, ok. Canadians over-represented for a country with a small(er) population but how many of those guys were bringing a 1/4 of weed into Korea compared to how many Americans/Kyopos were running grow-op/ecstasy in Hongdae night clubs/speed/ distribution to high school kids networks with revenue in the tens of millions of won? Who does more harm?
By the way, 4 Brits? Pretty high, I think. There are very few Brits in Korea, in my opinion. Where are the Kiwis? I can’t believe the luck of those guys.
I would argue that the number of Koreans actually caught with drugs is much higher than these figures would suggest. Koreans can plea and bribe their way out of trouble, whereas those damn dirty English teachers are routinely nailed to the wall at every opportunity.
#13
I’d guess that English teaching drug importers get busted at much higher ratio than their Korean counterparts but not because of bribery or discrimination. The English teachers are more likely to get caught because they chose such idiotic ways of going about it.
I’d argue that English teachers get busted at much higher ratios because, well, they’re much more likely to be trying to smuggle drugs into the country. Kind of like why Muslims find themselves the subject of counter-terrorism investigations at much high ratios than, say, Mennonites.
The mail!? What an ingenious idea!
I would’ve guessed up the bum.
Could we give the immigration authorities some latex gloves and KY to check this out?
Start with the Kiwis, if I understand MrMao correctly.
@15
That isn’t a valid comparison. Muslims are discriminated against because of 9/11 & AIPAC. They didn’t choose to be discriminated against.
ESL teachers chose to bring in illegal drugs.
More crack-use before commenting: “Muslims are discriminated against because of 9/11 & AIPAC.”
#17
Korean-Canadian, here’s a lesson in logic:
A1. Some Muslims chose to commit terror.
A2. Most Muslims do not chose to commit terror.
Likewise,
B1. Some ESL teachers chose to import drugs.
B2. Most ESL teachers do not chose to import drugs.
Whereas Robert compares A1 with B1, you are comparing A2 with B1, apples with oranges, or should I say kimchi with cannabis.
There’s a typo in the title. It should rather read:
One in 10 Drug Smugglers Caught and Convicted a Foreign English Teacher
As for:
“I’d argue that English teachers get busted at much higher ratios because, well, they’re much more likely to be trying to smuggle drugs into the country.”
Higher than gyopos or returning Koreans ? I wonder how many people of Korean blood (with family in Korea) have been let go (”cash bonuses” appreciated) in the name of “saving face” for themselves or their family ?
Yet, foreigners don’t have any family in Korea to lose face in front of, nor do they in general know how to “work the system” to get off.
I’m not saying Korea is any worse than anywhere else in this regard, I’m just trying to cast some doubt that English teachers really comprise 10% of the drug smugglers.
MigukNamja reiterates my point pretty well. To be fair, the Marmot also has a point about English teachers being more prone to drug smuggling than the average citizen. This is probably true.
But TEN PERCENT of the total? Come on. Now I don’t have any statistics to back me up here, but the number of Koreans I know who escaped jail time by flowing with tears or cash far outweighs the number of English teachers I know who smoke regularly, let alone the ones who’ve been caught.
Benicio74 - If there are such good distribution networks free from police investigation in Korea, why are the English teachers going to the trouble of mailing themselves drugs? If drugs were easily available in Korea, it would be much safer to make a buy from someone in a club or on the street. If the network is largely overseas it makes more sense for Korean police to focus on users in Korea.
Twenty two!?
TWENTY TWO?!?!
My god, that’s like… half of the teachers here or something, right? It’s fucking epidemic!
Someone arrest and deport them all before they go stuck heroin needles into everyone’s arms!
Miguknamja
FYI, someone my family knows had apparently mailed himself a bag of weed while in Korea (I think he was working at some investment company at the time). Anyway, he got busted for possession and intent to distribute and basically got deported out of the country back to the U.S. His father is a hot shot lawyer but was unable to get him off I guess. I’m sure it’s easier for a busted Korean to bribe/cry his way out compared to foreigners but it’s not always the case obviously.
I highly doubt the 10% figure but I dont doubt that Korean law enforcement racially profile when they randomly sniff the packages with their little doggies. That probably explains the high number. I could be wrong…
No. 22:
Jusy because there are good distribution systems in Korea doesn’t necessarily mean that your average ESLer is going to know how to access them, especially if he isn’t fluent in the language.
Well, 25, if I were a Korean dealer, I think it would be pretty easy to spot and approach potential foreign clientele in and around popular clubs at Hongik, Itaewon etc. And, pretty safe, too, since foreigners would be less likely to report me to the authorities.
It’s a bit everything, methinks.
Americans, Brits, and Canadians (ABCs) may have more experience with and likely have a different view of of weed since it’s not (as) illegal in their home countries. I’ll also stereotype and say that a large percentage of ABCs are adventurous by nature (hey, why are they here, teaching English or whatever ?), so the barrier for ABCs to smoke pot may not be as high as for the average Korean. As such, ABCs may indeed import pot at a higher rate than other groups, including Koreans.
There’s also the “doesn’t understand Korean law and law enforcement” angle, which contributes to ABCs being more easily caught.
Finally, ABCs likely stand a much lower chance of getting out of a conviction if caught.
So, add all these up and ABCs have a higher chance and rate of being caught and convicted.
But, all these factors are more detail than the media (not just Korean media, but almost any mass-market media) would like to get into - it complicates the story too much.
There’s another obvious factor here, which may better illuminate the Marmot’s point about English teachers and Muslim terrorists. We’re comparing the population of English teachers to the ENTIRE FREAKING population of adult Koreans. I’m willing to conservatively say that 90% of the teachers are under 40 years old, with most of those being 20-somethings. It’s a bit unfair to compare them to the whole of Korea, which has plenty of old people. So we could expect that teachers do a lot of things more than the general Korean population: snowboard, play XBox, see all three of those pirate movies, etc. Basically, anything that’s associated more with youth than old age. Would this include drug smuggling? Yes, I would think so. Does this indicate anything about the character of English teachers? No way. All it indicates is an obvious demographic difference.
Also, Koreans cry and bribe.
“see all three of those pirate movies”. No better summary of that demographic could possibly be conjured.
Dokdoforever, yes, there is that barrier between the foreign community and the local dealers, as said before. ESL teachers are most likely not going to be able to have any contact with them.
Also, I’m fairly certain that the local dealers & networks would not deal with foreigners- there is a potential for problems when you deal with an outside group.
Lastly, as you may have read or completely ignored, the Korean drug of choice is crystal meth or speed. The English teachers are fond of the weed & exstacy. The local dealers usually wouldn’t have what they want anyway, so it would be pretty useless for a pot smoker to try and seek them out, wouldn’t it?
Price has a pretty big part to play with the drugs of choice. I bet if weed was as cheap as meth here, a lot more Koreans would be smoking it. I heard form a friend of a friend of a friend, that a gram of weed could be as high as $50. In Vancouver, that would get you about 6-7 grams. For the price of an 8 grams here, you could fly to a different country and smoke all the weed you could handle.
I know of quite a few teachers who have renewed their contracts to stay in Korea, but take the flight home, just so they can get high. As for testing, back in Canada, their are plenty of products available to insure that you pee clean. If you wanted to start a new business here, just start importing those products. Most of them are drinks.
oops, double post, sorry
It may be true that the Korean police have a different method of dealing with drugs, but the United States and Korea have one thing in common. They both are getting nowhere when it comes to solving this problem. U.S. might be a little flashier, but getting nowhere. I will say though, that if your busted for drugs in the states, your in for the hassel of your life…
I’d like to see the numbers published (in national newspapers)on Koreans who commit crimes in countries while they are abroad-citizens or otherwise. I guess that would be wrong though because the host country would be targeting a minority group.
Well, the good news is that 90% of drug dealers are NOT English teachers!
#34, You’d actually have to find a country where there is a noticeable Korean minority (compared to other minorities), and the only country for that would be Japan, then maybe China. For the former case, I recall the statistic was that they had the second lowest crime rates (the lowest having a much lower population count). No need to throw in the ol’ Yakuza-full-of-Koreans though, I’ve no idea to the whole issue.
The USA does this as well, but with a vastly larger minority base, it’s inevitable that some groups may be lumped together. It’s usually a source of controversy when these statistics are quoted in the news, you can find the list on the FBI site (either that or the CIA).
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