SEOUL: One effect of South Koreans’ embrace of online shopping from overseas has been a jump in drugs smuggled into the country. Illegal imports of drugs, including methamphetamine and marijuana, rose 62% to a 10-year high of 150 billion won ($137 million) last year from 2013, according to the Korea Customs Service.
Meth topped the list of drugs, with a total imports of 50.8 kg–an amount that can be used by 1.68 million people simultaneously, the customs office said in a statement Thursday. That’s up 68% from the previous year.
Officials attributed the sharp rise to the diversification of smuggling sources from China and Hong Kong to Mexico and other countries.They also noted a rise in purchases by individuals from foreign websites.“Marijuana and a few other drugs are legal in some countries and thus can be purchased without prescriptions from websites abroad and then shipped to Korea,” said the customs office.
With the growing popularity of online shopping among consumers, a practice known as “jikgu” in Korean, goods ordered by individuals from overseas vendors surged more than sixfold from 2009 to a record $1.54 billion last year.The number of teenagers caught smuggling drugs into Korea via online purchases rose to 10 last year from just one in both 2013 and 2012, according to the customs agency.
