Customs investigator Lee Gwang-ju, front row fourth from left, poses with other customs officers at the Gwangju Customs office, Thursday. Courtesy of Korea Customs Service
An officer stationed at the Gwangju Customs office has been named the national agency’s Officer of the Month for April after orchestrating a massive, multi-agency narcotics bust.
The honor went to investigator Lee Gwang-ju. While serving in a district that happens to share his name made for a bit of office coincidence, Lee’s real-life detective work helped catch international drug smugglers.
According to agency officials, Lee’s streak began when he flagged a suspicious express cargo shipment using independent intelligence analysis. His hunch paid off, leading investigators to intercept 5 kilograms of methamphetamine hidden inside the delivery.
Working with local law enforcement, Lee tracked the delivery destinations and set up a coordinated sting operation. The trap successfully snared the alleged ringleader on the ground in Korea, netting an additional 18 kilograms of meth.
The total haul amounted to 23 kilograms. To put the significance of the seizure into perspective, 23 kilograms of methamphetamine represents roughly 760,000 individual doses, carrying an estimated street value of over 70 billion won ($51 million). In a country where illicit drug access is heavily restricted and penalized, intercepting a shipment of this scale deals a severe operational and financial blow to international trafficking syndicates attempting to establish deeper distribution networks within Korea.
The Korea Customs Service handed out a few other corporate gold stars this month.
An administrative worker at the agency’s customer support center won accolades for introducing a visual automated response system and a new scenario-based chatbot designed to make handling public complaints a bit less painful.
At the agency's Pyeongtaek station, another officer was recognized for cracking down on environmental crime after blocking the illegal export of roughly 247 tons of contaminated waste.
Rounding out the April awards list were several agents honored for intercepting smaller narcotics smuggling operations and exposing a series of false country-of-origin labeling schemes.
Source: Korea Times News
