Smuggling of narcotics via the U.S. military's postal service in South Korea continued despite the government's toughened crackdown, the customs agency said Wednesday.
The Korea Customs Service (KCS) said that it has seized a total of 1,147 grams of narcotics during the January-September period by monitoring mails moving to and from the Joint Military Mail Terminal (JMMT) at Incheon International Airport.
The JMMT handles mails for U.S. soldiers stationed in South Korea.
In January, the KCS uncovered 944 grams of cannabis concealed in a military parcel containing coffee products. Last April, a drug-sniffing dog also found 203.8 grams of cannabis and cannabis cookies concealed in female boots, the customs agency said.
This comes after the KCS cracked down on six smuggling attempts last year and seized a total of 2,905 grams of narcotics being illegally transported to South Korea through the JMMT. The drugs were discovered either with drug-sniffing dogs or X-ray scanners.
The 2012 and 2013 figures are quite larger than the amount of drugs confiscated in the previous years, indicating that the U.S. military mail system is emerging as a major channel for drug smuggling.
The KCS uncovered 30 grams and 374 grams of narcotics being smuggled through the JMMT in 2010 and 2011, respectively.
The increase is attributable to restrictions and challenges facing customs authorities in keeping oversight of mails moving through the U.S. mail system due to jurisdiction reasons, observers said.
Insufficient workforce employed at the JMMT is cited as another reason for the recent hike in smuggling. Only eight people are employed for just three hours a day in handling about 10,000 kilograms of mail every day at the JMMT. (Yonhap)
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