Seoul: The amount of illegal narcotics confiscated in South Korea from January to August this year has more than tripled the total for last year, a lawmaker said Thursday, citing customs data.
According to Yonhap News Agency, data from the Korea Customs Service (KCS) submitted to Rep. Chung Il-young of the National Assembly’s strategy and finance committee revealed that drug seizures in the first eight months of this year reached 2,810 kilograms, equivalent to nearly 76 million doses. By August, the figure was already 3.5 times higher than the 787 kilograms seized last year.
Cocaine accounted for the largest share of this year’s seizure, with around 2,302 kilograms confiscated, nearly 203 times the amount seized in 2023. The KCS reported that 99 percent of the cocaine confiscated this year entered South Korea by ship, with about 73 percent, or 1,690 kilograms, intercepted from vessels departing from Peru alone.
Rep. Chung warned that Korean ports are at risk of becoming a new transit hub for international drug cartels.