Police crack down on drug smugglers and users

SEOUL, Nov. 6 (Yonhap) -- Police said Friday they have arrested three drug
offenders and booked 32 others without detention on charges of selling or using
illegal drugs.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said the three arrested men, all in their
20s, allegedly smuggled drugs from overseas in July and sold them to the 32
people at several nightclubs in central Seoul.
Two of the three arrested suspects purchased the drugs via the Internet from
Britain and other countries and received them through international postal
service, while the third personally bought the drugs in Canada, police said.
The drugs the three suspects bought included Skunk, Spice and Super-E, which are
legally sold as psychoactive drugs in some European countries. All of the
narcotics were classified as illegal in South Korea last year.
"These new medical-purpose drugs have recently begun to spread rapidly because
they are cheaper and easier to get. With few arrests made by police so far,
people might have assumed the new drugs are safer than other drugs," one police
officer said.
Police said they will strengthen monitoring of Web sites based in foreign
countries where these drugs can be purchased.
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