Crime ring busted for smuggling Korean relics overseas

Police have caught en masse members of an organized crime ring who are charged with smuggling Korean cultural relics abroad via international couriers and other means.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said Thursday that it teamed up with the Cultural Heritage Administration to arrest 24 people on the charge of smuggling out 3,486 ancient books and 100 wooden artifacts and earthenware pieces in violation of the Cultural Property Protection Act. The suspects had bought the items at domestic auction sites and other sources. Police reclaimed 74 among the items that were smuggled.

One of the suspects, a 52-year-old man, is known to have smuggled out 3,486 ancient books on 129 occasions from April 2009 to November 2011 without permission from the Cultural Heritage Administration. He and two accomplices allegedly inserted ancient books in-between ordinary books and packed them before smuggling them to China via international door-to-door couriers.

Police said the man received 20 million won (17,600 U.S. dollars) in return for buying and sending cultural properties after receiving lists of items from a relative in China. “The man spent 240 million won (210,000 dollars) to buy cultural properties and resell them in China, but we haven`t yet confirmed his sale prices," a police source said.

According to the Cultural Heritage Administration, the books the suspect smuggled to China includes “Nosa Yeongeon,” an essay written in 1673 by Yi Hang-bok, a scholar and cabinet minister from the mid-Joseon dynasty, and others that describe the history and culture of the time.

Police also caught 20 other suspects who allegedly bought wooden artifacts and earthenware from cultural property and antique shops in Seoul’s Dongdaemun-gu and Jung-gu districts from May 2005 to December 2011 and smuggled out 100 items to Japan and China.