South Korean Police Arrest Seven in Crypto-powered Drug Dealing Bust

South Korean police officers in South Jeolla Province say they have arrested seven suspects in a raid on a “crypto-powered drug dealing” ring.

Per the media outlet KBC, police think the group smuggled methamphetamine into the country from overseas.

The Narcotics Crime Investigation Unit of the province’s Mobile Criminal Investigation Department said they had handed the case over to prosecution officials.

Crypto-powered Drug Dealing Crackdown

The unit announced on September 23 that they had arrested an unnamed 33-year-old suspected drug dealer on charges of violating the Narcotics Control Act.

It also announced it had charged six people aged between 20 and 49 with buying and using methamphetamine.

The suspected dealer is accused of “colluding with a drug distribution organization” to hide methamphetamine in 118 locations in Gwangju’s West and North districts.

Officers think the suspect was active “between March and April of this year,” and took unnamed cryptoassets as payment.

They think he hid a stash of smuggled narcotics under a tree in a remote mountainside location.

Officers said that the dealer covered bags of narcotics “with plastic and paper” and used “double-sided tape” to attach “deliveries.”

The suspected dealer’s “dead drop” locations included “the railings of a one-room apartment block.”

Police spokespeople said the dealer also left drugs in “the inside of a communication terminal box,” as well as a “fire hose” and an “outdoor air conditioning unit.”

🔪 Hugo Hyungsoo Lee, CEO of South Korean crypto yield platform Haru Invest, was attacked with a knife during his ongoing fraud trial.#Haru #SouthKoreahttps://t.co/I5rz2pBV62

— Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews) August 28, 2024

Police Sting

The investigators appear to have set up a sting operation to catch the suspected dealer. They explained that they “searched social media” for crypto-related slang terms.

They then used a chat app (presumably Telegram) to contact the suspect. They then used crypto to pay for drugs, as part of a bid to discover the suspect’s identity.

This eventually allowed them to find not only the suspect, but also his “drug den.” Officers said they confiscated 103.4g of the drug “hidden in a mountain in Gyeonggi Province.”

Police also said they had confiscated 83.35g of methamphetamine that the suspect had “hidden around” the city of Gwangju.

Officers said the drug haul had a street value of “approximately 620 million won (over $465,000).” They said the haul constituted “6,200 individual doses.”

The police said they were expanding their investigation to “identify the true nature of the drug distribution organization.”

Crypto to Blame for Drugs Epidemic, Officials Claim

Earlier this year, media outlets claimed that Telegram has become a “crypto-powered narcotics department store” for South Korean users.

1/4 Crypto encompasses all types of crime. 👏 We congratulate the 🚔 Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) for their success in arresting a criminal organization who set up a Telegram narcotics trafficking channel and distributed drugs from foreign countries to 🇰🇷 South Korea. pic.twitter.com/1NpP3AJQfO

— Chainalysis (@chainalysis) September 10, 2024

And earlier this month, South Korean customs officials blamed “the spread of crypto” for an 18% rise in drug smuggling cases.

Customs service spokespeople said they seized 769kg worth of narcotics last year, up from 624kg in 2022.

Some have claimed that this is proof that the nation’s crypto-powered narcotics “epidemic” is continuing to worsen, in spite of police crackdowns.