A drug trafficker who spent eight years evading arrest while moving between Thailand and Laos and orchestrated a drug distribution scheme in South Korea has been referred to prosecutors in custody.
The Narcotics Crime Investigation Unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's Metropolitan Investigation Bureau said on the 22nd that it had referred the distributor, identified only as A, to the Seoul Central Prosecutors' Office in custody on charges of violating the Act on the Control of Narcotics (cannabis).
A left for Thailand in March 2018 while committing jeonse (a Korean lease system requiring a large lump-sum deposit instead of monthly rent) fraud in South Korea, and spent eight years moving between Thailand and Laos to avoid arrest. At the time, A was wanted in connection with several criminal cases, including drug offenses and fraud. In May last year, A planned a cannabis distribution operation at the suggestion of B, a Korean national drug dealer whom A had met in Thailand. A then bought 3 kilograms of cannabis that B's group had smuggled in through Incheon International Airport and sold it to acquaintances in the Busan area through contacts including an older associate from A's hometown, police said.
In June last year, police arrested two people who had stored or distributed the cannabis on A's instructions and seized 2.5 kilograms of cannabis worth 375 million won, enough for about 5,000 people to smoke at the same time. B was also arrested in Thailand in March on charges of possessing ketamine and is standing trial. Police then worked with the National Intelligence Service, Thailand's Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) and Thai immigration authorities, and took custody of A in a joint operation by the two countries in Phuket, Thailand, on Aug. 12. After A's deportation was decided, the Narcotics Crime Investigation Unit and the International Crime Investigation Unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's Metropolitan Investigation Bureau received the deportation schedule from the Korean National Police Agency and sent an investigation team to Thailand. Officers arrested A aboard a national carrier flight on Oct. 15, escorted the suspect to South Korea and applied for an arrest warrant. The Seoul Central District Court issued the warrant on Oct. 17.
"We will continue to respond firmly to cross-border drug crimes by mobilizing all of our international cooperation capabilities," police said.