South Korean news outlet The Chosun Daily reports that an individual was recently extradited from Argentina to South Korea as part of an investigation into an attempt to smuggle drugs into the country earlier this year.
The individual, who has been identified only as a Filipino national in his 50s, has been suspected as an accomplice of a group that had attempted to bring a shipment of 57 boxes of cocaine totalling nearly two tons into South Korea via the Port of Okgye in Gangwon province.
Investigators from the Korea Coast Guard and the Korea Customs Service discovered the drugs during a joint raid on the Norwegian-flagged bulk carrier Lunita shortly after its arrival at Okgye on April 2.
A Filipino official said that the South Korean authorities had acted on intelligence supplied by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation stating that the ship was transporting drugs.
Lunita was manned by Filipino crews at the time of the raid and the ship's subsequent seizure by South Korean authorities. It is not known whether the extradited individual had been a member of the ship's crew prior to the seizure, as he had reportedly already fled the Philippines even before the ship arrived in Okgye.
The individual was subsequently arrested in Argentina. His arrest was confirmed by Interpol, which then prompted the South Korean authorities to facilitate his immediate extradition.
The Korea Coast Guard intends to glean additional intelligence from the suspect on the details of the smuggling operation and whether there are other accomplices involved.
Four of Lunita's Filipino crew had earlier been indicted in connection with the case, which a Korea Coast Guard official said is, "the largest-scale cocaine smuggling case in the country."