By Lee Hyo-sik
Police booked four fraudsters Wednesday on suspicion of smuggling over 1,300 North Korean paintings and selling them through art galleries here and on the Internet.
They are suspected of sending some illegal gains to the North, police said.
An international crime unit at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said a 46-year-old Korean-Chinese woman, surnamed Kim, illegally brought 1,308 paintings by some well-known North Korean artists into the country from May 2010 through July this year.
A 47-year-old art gallery CEO, surnamed Lee, and two other individuals colluded with Kim and sold the paintings at Lee’s gallery or through Internet sites.
They were found to have raked nearly 30 million won ($28,000) in illegal profits by selling 1,139 pieces, mostly landscape paintings, in breach of the law governing exchanges between the two Koreas.
Kim’s husband, who is a North Korean national and living in China, smuggled the paintings out of the North into China during the last 14 months.
Kim then delivered the pictures via international mail or brought them into South Korea herself.
Police said the North Korean artists are members of the communist country’s Mansudae art community that is known to be selling artworks overseas to earn hard foreign currency.
Kim’s husband is believed to have secured the supply of artwork on condition that he pays $8,000 annually and half the sales supports the Mansudae art community, police said.
They sold the paintings through galleries in Incheon, Daegu and Gwangju at prices between 50,000 won and 1 million won.
Kim was cleared of customs screening at Incheon International Airport on July 11 even though she had about 500 paintings wrapped in newspapers, police said.
“Rules have been toughened since the sinking of Korean warship Cheonan and attacks on Yeonpyeong Island last year. But the smuggling in of the paintings from the North through China laid bare the loopholes of customs procedures,” a police officer said.
He said the police will expand the investigation as more North Korean goods could be smuggled into the country.
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