By Yoon Ja-young
Staff Reporter
Gold and jewelry smuggling surged more than 14 times from a year ago due to huge margins and active transactions on the black market.
The Korea Customs Service said Friday that it picked up 36.7 billion won worth gold and jewelry smuggling cases in the first half of this year, up 1,363 percent from a year earlier. The gold is mostly smuggled in from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China.
``Smuggling is unceasing due to the gap between local and international prices and widespread transactions on the black market,'' the customs office said. Smugglers can avoid up to 65 percent taxes by trading on the black market.
The customs service said it caught 3,401 cases of smuggling and illegal foreign exchange transactions in the first half of the year, up 13 percent from a year ago and worth 1.8 trillion won.
China is the biggest source of smuggling, with 72 percent of smuggled goods coming from there. More recently, such countries as the U.S., Japan, Germany and Taiwan have emerged as smuggling sources.
KCS said drug smuggling is also surging. The customs service caught 118 drug smugglers, up 40 percent. Organized smuggling of methamphetamine, known as philopon, through international packmen or international mail, is especially rising.
It also caught 480 cases of intellectual property right infringement, most of which have to do with bogus luxury goods such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton or Chanel.
KCS said it would continue to crack down on smuggling. It also signed a MOU with a number of delivery service firms, to provide parcel tracking services from November.