Korea beefs up customs clearance security on reports of unidentified int’l mail

Korea Post in Incheon [Photo by Kim ho-young]

Fears are spreading in South Korea as unidentified international parcels are being found across the country in residential neighborhoods and government offices. More than 2,000 reports on receipt of such parcels have been filed.

While the government believes that chemical terrorism is unlikely as no poisons or other harmful substances have been detected thus far, it plans to immediately suspend customs clearance for suspicious international packages just in case and cooperate with local authorities in Taiwan and other countries for investigation.

According to the police on Sunday, a total of 2,058 reports have been filed by 5 p.m. Sunday since the first emergency call about a suspicious package delivered from Taiwan and other countries on Thursday.

The police have collected and are investigating 645 of them, while the remaining 1,413 were found to be false or inaccurate.

Fire authorities also received 1,705 reports on Sunday. Of these, 59 were collected by the fire department, 884 were handed over to the police, 38 to other agencies, and 724 were identified as false alarms.

The police are working with relevant agencies in collecting the reported packages and investigating whether there is any danger. However, there is a low likelihood of chemical terrorism as most of the reported packages contained inexpensive items such as lip balm or were delivered without anything inside.

At a welfare facility for the disabled in Ulsan, where suspicious packages were first reported in Korea on Thursday, three officials who opened a yellow package presumed to be an international mail from Taiwan were taken to the hospital as they complained of dizziness and breathing difficulties. They were discharged on Saturday as their symptoms eased.

No chemical, biological, or radiological hazardous materials were detected after a detailed analysis by the Agency for Defense Development. There were also reports that gas was detected in an international mail package found in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province on Saturday, but it turned out to be false.

Suspicious international packages [Photo by Yonhap]

It is questionable who sent the mysterious package and why. The police sees that it may be related to a brushing scam, in which overseas online shopping malls including those in China randomly send unordered items to manipulate sales performance and ratings. The police will continue investigations looking into multiple possibilities.

Some suspicions have also been raised that the North Korean government may have sent the packages in an attempt to disrupt the South Korean society, but it is unlikely.

The Taiwanese government said that the suspicious parcels found in Taiwan were “sent from China to Korea via Taiwan.”

The Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it contacted the foreign ministry, relevant authorities and local governments of China through Chinese diplomatic missions in Korea on Sunday and asked for confirmation and clarification of the facts.

China has informed that it will cooperate with the Korean government’s request to the fullest extent, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, the National Security Council held a meeting with the ministries involved on Sunday morning to discuss follow-up measures on the overseas mail incident.

The participants of the meeting examined the response system and discussed future measures after identifying the overall situation surrounding the incident.

The Korea Customs Service has been implementing emergency customs clearance measures for international mail and express packages since Friday to prevent any suspicious international mail from being brought into the country. Those found as fraudulent cargoes without any contents or no value after an X-ray inspection are immediately returned in cooperation with the Korean Post and express couriers.

Additionally, cases suspected to have suspicious contents will be reported to the police.