Pubdate: Tue, 04 Sep 2001
Source: Korea Times (South Korea)
Copyright: 2001 The Hankookilbo
Contact: http://www.hk.co.kr/board/ktboard.htm
Website: http://www.hk.co.kr/times.htm
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/916
Author:  Ryu Jin

PUSAN POLICE BREAK UP INT'L DRUG SMUGGLING RING

An international drug smuggling ring that supplied various narcotics 
in Pusan was broken up yesterday, said the Pusan Metropolitan Police 
Agency.

The police announced that they arrested eight Russian drug 
traffickers, including a 46-year-old former member of the Russian 
mafia, on the charge of distributing drugs to foreigners and citizens 
for the past three and a half years, using the shopping area of 
Choryang-dong in the southern port city.

The police also began a search for two Iranian dope peddlers, who 
brought in heroin, hashish and marijuana from the Middle East and 
provided them to the Russian gang.

According to police officers, the drug smuggling group, which called 
itself ``Baso and his Family,'' is also suspected of involvement in 
several instances of human smuggling, including one in July that 
transported illegal foreign residents of Korea from Pusan to Hokkaido 
in Japan.

Pusan's police agency is inquiring into further crimes after 
obtaining a secret tip that the organized crime ring meddled in the 
operation of shops in the shopping area frequented by foreigners, and 
investigating whether or not the gang is linked to domestic organized 
crime rings.
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