South Korean prosecution said that it indicted 10 people including two foreigners on Friday on charges of smuggling drugs into Korea.

According to the Seoul Western District Prosecutors’ Office, it detained a 28-year-old French man suspected of selling drugs, including cannabis and ecstasy, in clubs in Seoul after buying them from websites based in the U.S., U.K., and Netherlands via international parcel services. 

The investigators also indicted a U.S. national, 30, who teaches at an international school in Seoul. He allegedly bought drugs including zolpidem in the Philippines in July last year and had it delivered to the school he works in.

A Korean hip-hop artist, 29, was also indicted on charges of attempting to smuggle 28 grams of marijuana into the country via an international postal services. A 35-year-old officer worker was also detained for taking drugs.

According to the prosecution, the French man allegedly sold 125.5 grams of drugs after purchasing it on darknet, an untraceable website that uses anonymity tools to hide their IP address. He used bitcoins for payment, prosecutors said.

The man reportedly attempted to flee the country to Japan to dodge an investigation, but failed to do so due to a travel ban issued by the prosecution. Prosecutors said he confessed to his crime after investigators obtained text messages exchanged between him and drug dealers. One of the messages read that he would want to become a “king of drugs,” investigators said.

The indictment comes as part of the prosecutors’ crackdown on drug users and traffickers in the first half of the year.

(laeticia.ock@heraldcorp.com)