Largest cocaine seizure at Busan Port

[Anchor]

A staggering amount of cocaine capable of being administered to 20 million people has been discovered on a cargo ship that entered Busan Port.

This is the largest amount of drugs detected at Busan Port to date.

Reporter Kang Ji-a has the details.

[Report]

A large cargo ship has docked at Busan Port.

Customs officials break the lock and enter the container.

Inside the empty container, there are 12 suspicious packages wrapped in waterproof material.

A preliminary test shows a positive result for drugs.

["That's it. It's cocaine!"]

Through a detailed analysis, cocaine was confirmed within 8 hours.

The amount detected is 600 kg.

This is enough for 20 million people to use simultaneously, with a market value of 300 billion won, making it the largest amount of drugs ever detected at Busan Port.

Busan Customs, which received intelligence from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, found the cocaine just before the cargo ship was set to leave Busan Port.

The cargo ship regularly travels from Ecuador, passing through Peru and Mexico, to Japan and China.

[Kim Jun-seop/Busan District Prosecutor's Office Human Rights Protection Officer: "It was loaded in Central and South America by an international drug organization and was supposed to be retrieved in a third country, but for unknown reasons, it ended up coming to Busan New Port..."]

After nearly three months of investigation, the prosecution concluded that the crew members of the cargo ship and local individuals had no connection to the detected cocaine.

[Yeom Seung-yeol/Busan Main Customs Investigation Bureau Director: "As border controls in the U.S. and Europe have recently been strengthened, there are indications that international drug organizations are trying to expand their cocaine distribution channels to East Asia, including Korea."]

Customs has decided to strengthen efforts to block drug inflow through international cooperation, as there have been continuous attempts to smuggle drugs through domestic ports recently.

This is KBS News, Kang Ji-a.