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| Entrance to Burning Sun club in Gangnam district, Seoul. / Korea Times file |
Police to increase officers in charge of drug investigation from 150 to 250
By Lee Suh-yoon
The Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) said Sunday it will set up a new division to investigate illegal drug use in response to an increase in the number of related crimes.
The move follows the burgeoning rape and drug scandal involving K-pop stars and Gangnam's upscale nightclubs as well as illicit drug use by some chaebol scions.
Currently, a small, six-member team under the Criminal Affairs Department at the KNPA supervises investigations into the use and trafficking of illegal drugs.
Under the plan, outlining the 2020 personnel quota proposed for each KNPA department, the team will become a separate division, headed by a senior superintendent who will report directly to the KNPA chief.
Each regional police agency also has units of between four and five members dealing with drug crimes. The total number of officers assigned to anti-drug efforts will also increase from 150 nationwide to 250, according to the plan submitted to an external commission board for approval.
Yoon Heung-hee, a professor at Hansung University's drug and alcohol addiction department and a former police officer who worked in narcotics for over 30 years, welcomed the decision.
"I wish these changes could have happened while I was in the field," Yoon told The Korea Times, Sunday. "I once lost the chance to arrest a drug criminal because I was reassigned to a non-drug-related investigation, which happened a lots because the narcotics investigation team was overseen by the general criminal affairs department."
With the creation of a narcotics division, Yoon hopes there can be more systematic support and effective assignment of officers for drug investigations. The change will allow for the formation of specialized teams in charge of intelligence gathering or cooperation with outside parties such as the National Forensic Service, the prosecution and foreign law enforcement agencies, Yoon added.
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| Singer-actor Park Yu-chun presents himself at Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency in Suwon, April 17, to be questioned over suspicions of illegal drug use. / Yonhap |
"Right now, one team starts the investigation, makes a detention and pursues an arrest warrant all on its own," Yoon said. "The new division can also make sure officers get proper education and training for drug investigations ― like the 390 different types of drugs and how to locate and collect intelligence, and approach and apprehend drug addicts."
Jeon Kyoung-soo, also a former police officer and head of the Drug Criminology Institute of Korea, has a different opinion to Yoon.
"It's better than nothing but not a fundamental solution," Jeon said in a phone interview. "Without proper government-funded studies and measures to permanently cure addiction in individuals, deploying a million police officers won't solve the problem. The police are just one player in the fight against drugs. The government, the National Assembly, and relevant departments have to put together a long-term policy and set up an independent control tower to carry this out."
In recent months, what started as drug-and-rape allegations of female clubbers at the Burning Sun nightclub has branched out into a full-blown drug use scandal ensnaring multiple celebrities and chaebol scions.
The police crackdown since Feb. 25 has rounded up 1,677 users and traffickers, with 566 of them being arrested.
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