[News Today] DRUGS CIRCULATED AT BARS

[LEAD]
Authorities have detained over forty individuals linked to the drug trade at entertainment venues in metropolitan areas. Most are Vietnamese. They cleverly avoided detection by hiding drugs in electric rice cookers and operating by appointment only.

[REPORT]
In a bar in Suwon, Gyeonggi-do Province, a woman deftly collects white powder on a dish.

It is Ketamine, a narcotic drug.

41 people were detained by police on charges of circulating narcotic drugs at bars, like this. 34 of them are Vietnamese.

Nam Seong-shin/ Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency
Some suspects joined drug ring in order to pay parents' medical expenses in Vietnam. But most of them did it to cover their own lavish spending.

They are accused of selling or using Ketamine and Ecstasy at bars and clubs in the capital area for ten months since October 2023.

In order to evade law enforcement, some of them received reservations by phone or stored narcotics in an electric rice cooker.

Police seized from them 207 grams of Ketamine, 1,246 tablets of Ecstasy and 20
milliliters of synthetic cannabinoids.

This is an amount enough to be used by 8,000 people.

Undercover police disguised as customers caught a bar employee handing over Ketamine on the site. And then, they captured sellers and distributors one by one by analyzing security camera footage.

They also requested the INTERPOL to issue a red notice to locate and arrest a Vietnamese woman, the head of the drug ring who fled to her home country.

The number of drug offenders who are caught at bars and clubs have jumped more than five fold over the past four years.

Over 400 drug offenders were detained during a four-month crackdown, which began last September.