1 Billion Won in Cash Found in Bag... First Joint Tax Evasion Raid by IRS and Customs

[Please open the door.]

When the apartment front door showed no signs of opening for two hours, even the police showed up.

[This is a joint house search by the National Tax Service and the Korea Customs Service, and they are not opening the door.]

This homeowner imported e-cigarettes while falsely declaring raw materials or reporting lower sales, evading a total of 6.4 billion won in national and customs taxes.

A locked travel bag was discovered in the master bedroom, but the tax delinquent's family played dumb, claiming they knew nothing.

[I don't know. (You have something this big in your house and you just keep it without knowing?)]

Inside the bag were 1.02 billion won in cash and checks.

There was also a businessman suspected of living in a large apartment under his ex-wife's name after staging a fake divorce to avoid paying 550 million won in delinquent taxes.

In the living room display cabinet, about 10 bottles of expensive liquor were displayed, and bundles of foreign currency and gold items poured out from a safe.

[These are my jewelry pieces, all of them.]

The first joint search targets of the National Tax Service and the Korea Customs Service are 16 high-amount, malicious tax delinquents.

Large amounts of cash, luxury bags, and precious metals were continuously found in the homes of the delinquents, and it was revealed that some delinquents had traveled abroad about 120 times over 5 years.

As a result of the joint search, a total of 1.3 billion won worth of hidden assets, including 1 billion won worth of cash and checks and luxury bags, were seized, and a promise for installment payments of delinquent taxes amounting to 15 million won per month was secured.

This joint search follows the government's stance to eliminate barriers between ministries.

The National Tax Service and the Korea Customs Service evaluated that this joint crackdown, which shared the experience and technology of each agency, increased the search success rate and seizure performance compared to solo crackdowns.

[Kang Jong-hun / Director General of the Collection and Legal Bureau at the National Tax Service: I would like to say that we succeeded in seizing assets, in finding hidden assets, about 80% of the time, and if you look at it from a conventional standpoint, you can see that as a fairly high, very, very high figure.]

The National Tax Service and the Korea Customs Service plan to regularize the exchange of delinquent information and continue joint responses in the future.

Reported by Hong Yeongjae | Video by Jung Seong-hun | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.