Customs Officials Arrested for Attempting to Sell Seized Wine on Black Market

▲ Wine

Customs officials have been arrested for allegedly taking tens of millions of won in bribes by promising to siphon off high-end wine seized as contraband and hand it over to black market brokers.

According to legal circles on July 2, Lee Jong-rok, a warrant judge at the Seoul Central District Court, issued arrest warrants for two customs officials, identified as A and B, on June 30. The warrants were issued following a pre-arrest interrogation (warrant validity review) for charges including solicitation of bribes and bribery under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Crimes.

According to investigative authorities, A and B were employees at the Seoul Customs Investigation Bureau, where they were responsible for tasks such as gathering intelligence on smuggling and overseeing investigations.

The investigation revealed that they attempted to secretly divert high-end wine from seized contraband to sell to black market brokers in exchange for tens of millions of won in kickbacks.

They exploited a loophole in the system where food and beverage contraband is disposed of without a separate public auction due to storage issues, planning to swap the wine through a process known as bottle switching.

After finding a black market broker to purchase the wine, A and B were found to have received approximately 30 million won in August 2023 under the pretext of helping the broker lobby to divert the seized high-end wine.

It was also discovered that they demanded an additional 40 million won from the broker in December of the same year.

However, this additional sum was never actually received.

Their criminal activities came to light after the planned transaction fell through due to circumstances within the customs office.

A and B had originally planned to hand over 88 bottles of high-end wine (valued at approximately 500 million won) out of about 400 seized bottles to the broker. However, as time passed, most of the wine had to be returned due to issues such as the expiration of the statute of limitations, significantly reducing the scale of the deal.

Despite this, when A and B demanded an additional 40 million won without delivering a single bottle of the seized wine, the broker, holding a grudge, reported the incident to the police.

The Anti-Corruption Investigation Division of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, which investigated the case, applied bribery charges, viewing the receipt and demand for money by A and B as compensation for improper acts related to their official duties, and requested arrest warrants.

However, after supplementary investigations, the prosecution changed the charges for the 30 million won received for lobbying services to solicitation of bribes, viewing it as compensation for simple mediation rather than work related to their official duties.

The charge of attempted bribery was applied regarding the 40 million won.

The court, which conducted the warrant review, issued the warrants, stating there is a risk of evidence destruction and flight.

The police plan to further investigate the arrested officials to strengthen the charges before referring them to the prosecution.

It is reported that the police did not book the broker, who provided the money, as a suspect at the warrant request stage.

Regarding this, a police official stated, "We cannot confirm whether they have been booked."

(Photo: Yonhap News)

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