Winning war on drugs through int’l cooperation

Yoon Tae-sik
The author is the commissioner of the Korea Customs Service.

“Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time,” a celebrated 2012 Korean mob film, is set in Busan in the early 1980s when drug and gang-related crimes peaked. The movie begins with a corrupt customs officer who colludes with a gang ringleader to make money from smuggling drugs he seized during a crackdown to Japan.

After forty years, the Korean government has waged yet another war on drugs — this time against drugs in the country — after they have increased sharply. A drug war once foreign to Koreans has become real. As drug smuggling and trafficking surged, the amount seized by the Korea Customs Service (KCS) has ballooned nine times over the last five years.

Korea has long lost its reputation as a “drug-free” country. Drugs today pose a serious threat to public lives and social order. The government is fully devoted to the war on drugs.

The KCS bears the biggest responsibility to block hazardous and illegal materials from entering our borders. The authority confiscated 86 percent of all illegal drugs in the country over the last five years. Declaring war on drugs this year, the agency in February announced a comprehensive crackdown operation.

How can we effectively cut off the sinister connection with the devilish drug? The borderline is the starting place. The drugs circulated in Korea had mostly been produced overseas and smuggled into the country. That’s why the KCS plays the main role in the war on drugs.

To efficiently stop smuggling drugs, cooperation with customs authorities of other countries is essential. The KCS can raise the efficiency of a crackdown when it works closely with its overseas counterparts to address transnational trafficking on top of the installation of high-tech surveillance and detection equipment at the borders to block illegal drugs from the beginning.

Therefore, the KCS has toughened partnerships with drug-related international agencies and customs authorities since last year.

For instance, from May to August last year, it carried out a joint operation with the Thai customs authority to prevent smuggling drugs from the Golden Triangle, one of the largest drug-producing regions around the world, where Myanmar, Laos and Thailand converge. For the joint action, the KCS opened an operation control center in the area and stationed intelligence officers for the first time in the history of the organization. They stopped 35 cases of attempts to smuggle a huge amount of drugs — including 22 kilograms (49 pounds) of methamphetamine, better knowns as philopon in Korea, and 290,000 Yaba tablets — from Thailand to Korea.

The KCS also has been working with the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, an investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, to catch traffickers attempting to smuggle in 35 kilograms of illegal drugs into Korea on ten occasions. The successful campaign has reaffirmed the effectiveness of international collaboration in a battle to stop the spread of illegal drugs in Korea.

Apart from these operations with individual countries, the KCS also has been keeping up with the multilateral collaboration. It carried out a joint crackdown with the customs authorities in the Asia-Pacific region and stopped 75 cases of smuggling illegal drugs, including 89 kilograms of philopon, in November and December alone.

To raise the effectiveness of multilateral collaboration, drawing more partner countries to the joint effort is very important. The Korea Customs Week 2023, held from April 26 to 28 in Seoul with the participation of 78 countries, marked a milestone in reinforcing international cooperation to control drug smuggling. International customs authorities from 57 countries signed the Seoul Declaration and reconfirmed the need for close exchanges and cooperation for transnational drug crackdowns.

In particular, Korea and 17 other Asia-Pacific countries adopted the Joint Statement on Customs Cooperation on Narcotics Control in Asia and the Pacific Region to escalate the level of communication and practical cooperation among customs authorities in the region by sharing information related to the illegal drug trade and increasing human exchanges through joint crackdowns at the same time. The joint proclamation carries great significance as the region accounted for a whopping 87 percent of all illegal drugs seized by the KCS last year.

During the week, the KCS also held separate talks with major drug-fighting countries like the U.S., Malaysia, Ecuador and Columbia, as well as with delegates of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to discuss joint actions. The KCS plans to use the momentum to expand the scope of cooperation to Europe, South America and other countries with drug-distributing channels.

The danger from drug-related crimes sounds loud alarms in Korea. We must fight the war as if it is the last opportunity. The KCS will concentrate all of its resources and capabilities on the battle until it confirms the country is safe from drugs. It will continue to tighten cooperation with authorities at home and abroad so that the parasites of the drug industry dare not set foot in this country.