International Smuggling Rings Target Young Women in Korea

Young women are increasingly lured into drug trafficking by members of international smuggling rings at bars and criminals in downtown areas. Allured by free overseas trips, they are used to deliver drugs already smuggled in Korea to other countries.

Two women including 24-year-old Bang arrested on Nov. 24 at the Manchester Airport in England, after being caught carrying some 2 billion won-worth cocaine. And according to local reports, they were used for drug delivery by an international smuggling ring.

The reports said that a Nigerian man named Frankie, who is about 35 years old, approached 7 to 8 young women in Korea to have them carry drugs and is under criminal investigations for five similar cases.

Of the two Korean women earlier arrested at the airport, Bang was introduced to Frankie by Park, a 34-year-old woman she met at a bar in Itaewon.

Saying Frankie is her boyfriend who runs 12 garment and shoe factories in Europe, Park offered a free trip to the Netherlands. Bang, who has not traveled abroad before, left Korea with Park on October 17. Unlike the earlier schedule, however, she traveled through China, Switzerland, Brazil, Peru, the Netherlands and Germany where she finally met the man and returned to Korea on October 29.

In early November, Bang was asked again to carry some clothing and shoe samples to Frankie in London. Having left with 24-year-old Tae on the 17th for London, where she stayed with Frankie for three days, she then flew to Guyana to get the thing from local people there.

On the 24th, she found out that the thing was 10kg cocaine worth some 1 million pound when she was caught at Manchester Airport.

The man known as Frankie is a Nigerian who is about 175 to 178cm tall and living in the black resident area in downtown Itaewon. He spent a lot of money getting along with Korean women and used to say that he took Korean language course in Ehwa Women’s University and Kunkuk University in 1998. The authorities believe that he is a member of an international drug smuggling ring who brings in cocaine produced in Latin America to Asia and Europe.