Hayun Kim - Week One Card News
The so-called “throwing method,” where ordinary people could easily obtain drugs if they want, is indiscriminately exposing Korea to drugs.
Drug transactions in the past mainly occurred through the dark web that cannot be found with general search engines such as Chrome and Naver. However, buyers recently began to trade and purchase drugs in a more reliable and accessible way.
The “throwing method” is a method in which drug buyers and sellers do not trade drugs face-to-face.
First of all, drug dealers post their Telegram IDs and code names for the drugs that they trade on various platforms such as Instagrams, YouTube, and Twitter. When a drug buyer who reads the seller’s post contacts the seller via Telegram and pays in digital currency, the trader informs them of the location they have placed the drug in advance. This transaction method avoids police investigation as accurate identification is difficult since everything from the purchase to payment and acquisition is “non-face-to-face.”
Investigator C of the Metropolitan Prosecutor's Office said, “Bitcoin is rarely used for drug transactions since all transmission and reception records remain.”
The dealing places are mainly under the air conditioner units in alleys, inside toilet bowls in a public bathroom, and on a chair in the subway. Such drugs are left in specific places that ordinary people would cluelessly pass by and never check.
Drug dealers continue to be arrested as a result of police investigations. From November 20 to August 2022, the police have caught dealers who sold drugs worth 500 million won by posting advertisements for the sale of narcotics on social media. Furthermore, the age of drug offenders continues to decrease. Of the drug offenders arrested by the police last year, many (3,211 people) were in their 20s, followed by those in their 30s (2803) and those in their 40s (2346).
However, Seung Jae-hyeon, a research fellow at the Criminal Policy Research Institute, pointed out that “drug crime methods are becoming more and more intelligent, but drug investigations still remain faulty as in the past.”
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