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

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Tim Alper is a British journalist and features writer who has worked at Cryptonews.com since 2018. He has written for media outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, and Chosun Ilbo. He has also worked...

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.

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.”