A South Korean man has been sentenced to eight years in prison for smuggling a large quantity of illegal drugs into the country, a local court said Monday.

The defendant in his 30s has been accused of having brought in the drugs, hidden inside bags of snacks, from Hawaii between December 2018 and October 2021. He smuggled a total of 405 pills of ecstasy, 16.35 grams of cocaine and 2.79 kilograms of cannabis.

South Korea's Narcotics Control Act bans the possession, transaction or use of what it defines as narcotics or psychotropic medicine. The defendant's punishment is based on the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc., of Specific Crimes, which stipulates a heavier punishment for crimes of a particularly severe nature.

The defendant's illegal activities were discovered after he sent one of his drug-filled packages to a wrong address in Busan in August of 2021, at which point a citizen found it and notified the police. Police launched an investigation and had Interpol issue a red notice for the defendant, who was apprehended at Incheon International Airport in January of 2023.

The drugs were distributed here mostly via workers at local nightclubs.