It has been confirmed that prosecutors are investigating a ‘second Park Wang-yeol’ who is in a Cambodian prison. This Korean man in his 60s is susp...
Park Wang-yeol, who was extradited from the Philippines, appears for a pre-arrest suspect interrogation at the Uijeongbu District Court in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province, on the morning of the 27th. Kwon Do-hyeon, reporter It has been confirmed that prosecutors are investigating a ‘second Park Wang-yeol’ who is in a Cambodian prison.
This Korean man in his 60s is suspected of distributing large quantities of drugs into South Korea while being incarcerated in an overseas prison, like Park Wang-yeol. However, without diplomatic means, extraditing him to South Korea is not easy, creating difficulties for the investigation. According to Kyunghyang Shinmun reporting on the 5th, prosecutors are investigating a man surnamed Song, who is imprisoned in a Cambodian prison, on suspicions including smuggling methamphetamine into the country. The indictment of a narcotics offender surnamed Lee, whom prosecutors charged last November, states that in October last year, Lee received 5㎏ of methamphetamine in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, then in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, divided and packaged it, and delivered it to another dealer using a throwing method; the investigation found that Song ordered this crime. Song is the so-called ‘overseas controller’ of the drug organization. Investigative agencies, including the police and prosecution, have long kept Song under watch. In the judgment for a case in which about 2㎏ of methamphetamine worth around 100 million won was smuggled into the country in May 2020, Song was also identified as a supplier based in Cambodia. He has been mentioned as an overseas chief in several cases involving drug distributors. However, because he is incarcerated in an overseas prison, it has been difficult for domestic authorities to block his crimes. According to investigation records in which Song appears, he had been imprisoned in South Korea for violating the Narcotics Control Act, was released upon completion of his term in January 2019, departed for Cambodia, and was arrested there on charges including possession of methamphetamine. He is reported to have been sentenced locally to 22 years in prison, and from inside prison he has used a mobile phone to communicate with accomplices and distribute drugs such as methamphetamine and heroin into South Korea. The exact quantity of drugs smuggled into South Korea by Song and how much he profited from it have not been determined. However, it is presumed that, because he established networks with existing drug distributors long ago, he has various channels for distribution into the country. A former drug distributor said in a phone call with this reporter, “While Park Wang-yeol is well known by name because of a murder case and drug cases involving celebrities, he is unfamiliar among drug distributors,” and “By contrast, Song has been active for a long time and has diverse connections, and is known to have distributed a larger quantity of drugs into the country.” To block drugs coming into the country, investigators need to go after the overseas controllers, but for those incarcerated abroad like Song, extradition before completion of their sentences is difficult. A police official with long experience in drug investigations said, “There have been multiple previous attempts to bring Song to South Korea, but my understanding is that local cooperation was not forthcoming.” With Park Wang-yeol recently extradited to South Korea following the South Korea-Philippines summit, some assess that the possibility has also opened for Song to be extradited. An official at the Government Joint Investigation Headquarters on Drug Crimes said, “Cases in which someone distributes drugs into the country while incarcerated, like Park Wang-yeol or Song, are not many. Including Song, we have selected 4~5 among the overseas controllers detained locally in places such as the United States and Brazil who need to be extradited first, and we are continuing to pursue their extradition. Diplomatic efforts are also needed to obtain local cooperation.”
Extradition Thwarted Multiple Times”
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Special counsel team summons ex-President Yoon and his wife as criminal suspectsSpecial counsel Min Joong-ki’s team, investigating allegations against former First Lady Kim Keon-hee, notified former President Yoon Suk-yeol and ...
Read more »
Prosecutors seek 5-year prison term for woman over ‘pregnancy blackmail·threats’ against Son Heung-minProsecutors asked the court to impose a five-year prison sentence on a woman who claimed she was pregnant with the child of national team soccer pl...
Read more »
Yoon Suk-yeol sentenced to five years in prison at first instance over charges including ‘obstruction of arrest’···first judgment among eight criminal trialsThe court has sentenced former President Yoon Suk-yeol to five years in prison on charges including ‘obstruction of arrest’. This is the judiciary’...
Read more »
‘Recession goods’ lottery spending jumped 50% among households with multiple children last year···fallout from the illegal martial law?It has been confirmed that in early last year, when consumer sentiment had slumped due to former President Yoon Suk-yeol’s 12·3 illegal martial law...
Read more »
Rogers, Coupang's interim representative, receives another large stock grant…worth $4,053,102 (6,140,000,000 KRW)Harold Rogers, Coupang’s interim representative, received another large stock award in about two months. Coupang, Inc., Coupang’s parent company, d...
Read more »