Drug crimes by foreigners on the rise, violent crimes fall

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By Lee Hyo-jin

The number of drug-related crimes committed by foreign nationals in Korea has more than doubled over the last four years, while over the same time the number of violent crimes such as murder and assault has decreased, according to a lawmaker, Thursday.

Rep. Kang Gi-yun of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) revealed data received from the National Police Agency that included the number of crimes committed by foreigners between 2017 and 2020, based on the number of cases booked.

There has been an average of 37,000 booked cases every year; 36,069 in 2017, 34,832 in 2018, 39,249 in 2019 and 39,140 in 2020.

The number of foreign suspects booked for drug crimes has more than doubled from 620 in 2017 to 1,428 in 2020. The number of non-violent crimes such as fraud and scamming stood at 7,002 cases last year, up 53 percent from 4,571 in 2017.

Meanwhile, violent crimes including murder and robbery decreased during the same period. The number of foreign nationals booked for murder fell by 32 percent from 106 to 80.

Sex offense and assault cases also dropped by 17 percent and 11 percent, respectively, while the number of robberies and thefts slightly decreased by 4 and 3 percent each.

Among the foreign nationals who committed crimes, by nationality, Vietnamese showed the largest increase. A total of 3,102 people from Vietnam were booked last year, up 65 percent from 1,877 in 2017. The crime rate for Pakistanis also surged, up 62 percent from 274 to 444.

The number of crimes committed by Chinese nationals showed a 5 percent decrease to 18,922 from 19,927 in 2017.