S. Korea: Police expand crackdown on foreign-linked drug trafficking

South Korean police are broadening their drug enforcement campaign to focus more heavily on cross-border supply networks and online distribution, as foreign nationals account for a growing share of suspected suppliers.

The National Office of Investigation said Sunday that police arrested 848 foreign nationals for drug offenses between March and June, 114 more than in the same period last year. Nearly half of them — 400 — were suspected of manufacturing, smuggling or selling drugs.

Suppliers accounted for 47.2 percent of foreign drug suspects, compared to 39.2 percent of all drug offenders arrested during the period, suggesting that cases involving foreign nationals are slightly more closely associated with distribution than drug use alone.

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Police will make drug trafficking involving foreign nationals one of four priorities in a five-month nationwide crackdown running from Monday through Dec. 31. The other areas are new psychoactive substances, the illegal use and distribution of prescription narcotics and online drug sales.

Investigators will expand intelligence gathering through international crime units and contacts in areas with large foreign populations. Police said the effort would focus on drugs smuggled into Korea and distributed through foreign-language communities and other informal networks.

The campaign reflects a broader effort by Korean authorities to dismantle supply chains that increasingly operate across national borders and through digital platforms.

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Police arrested 5,203 drug suspects during an earlier crackdown from March through June and detained 1,039 of them. Total arrests rose 1.8 percent from a year earlier, while the number detained increased by 75.

Of those arrested, 2,040 were suspected of manufacturing, smuggling or selling drugs, accounting for 39.2 percent of the total. That compared with 1,860 suspects, or 36.4 percent, during the same period last year. /dl