A drug sniffer dog is on duty at Incheon International Airport on Aug. 11, 2022. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, July 5 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of apprehended drug offenders surged to a record high of 18,395 last year, driven by crimes among young people and foreigners, a prosecution report showed Wednesday.
According to the 2022 white paper on drug crimes published by the Supreme Prosecutors Office, the figure marks an upsurge of 45.8 percent from 2018, when the corresponding number reached 12,613.
The number of apprehended drug offenders stood at 16,044 in 2019, 18,050 in 2020 and 16,153 in 2021, the report also showed.
The office attributed the sharp increase to soaring drug crimes among younger generations made possible by the dark web and social media platforms where drugs can be sold and bought online.
Of the drug offenders detected last year, 10,988, or 59.8 percent of the total, were those in their 30s or younger. The corresponding number in 2018 was 5,257.
The number of foreign drug offenders, meanwhile, reached 2,573, nearly tripling from 948 in 2018, the report also showed.
A total of 1,392 people were apprehended last year for drug smuggling, up 167 percent from 2018, when the corresponding number was 521.
“The ratio of foreigners in the overall drug crimes was 14 percent, but they represented about 40 percent of the total drug smugglers,” the report said.
Last year, authorities confiscated a total of 804.5 kilograms of illegal drugs, including 167.6 kg of Yaba, a combination of methamphetamine and caffeine.
The quantity of Yaba confiscated marks nearly a twentyfold increase from 2018, when 8.5 kg was confiscated.
(Yonhap)
