High School Students In Seoul Targeted With Drug-Laced “Health” Drinks Outside Cram Schools
On April 4, KST, a woman in Seoul was arrested for allegedly drugging high school students without their knowledge through drinks laced with narcotics.
According to reports, this woman and her accomplices were giving out drinks to high schoolers in Daechi-dong, southern Seoul. The area houses many private cram schools attended by a large number of students. This group of scammers would offer them drinks, claiming that they enhance memory and concentration. But in reality, the beverage was spiked. The police tested the drinks and found methamphetamine and ecstasy in them.
The incident was reported to the Gangnam Police Station on Monday, April 2. The police arrested a 49-year-old suspect at her home in Imun-dong, eastern Seoul. They are still tracking down her three other accomplices.
So far, the police have received six reports related to this case. The group gave out the drinks for free, claiming that it was a tasting event. The drinks were labeled “Mega ADHD” and promised to boost focus. The suspects then would ask the students for their parents’ contact information under the guise of survey purposes and reportedly threaten the parents later. They blackmailed them, saying their children would be reported to the police for using drugs, and extorted them.
The police suspect that there might be more victims outside the ones who have filed reports, given that these fake tasting events were held quite frequently, according to witnesses.
According to the woman apprehended by the police, she was unaware that the drinks were drugged. She told the police she was just applying for a part-time job she had found online. After local media started reporting the incident, one of her accomplices, a man in his 40s, turned himself in at the police station at 10 am the same day.
Police analyzed CCTV footage and found two more suspects in this case. The four usually split into groups of two and worked systematically. The other two accomplices are two women, one in her 40s and the other in her 20s.
The scale of this operation might be bigger as students have started reporting that unidentified people have handed out ‘concentration boost’ drinks in front of their schools and have seen similar drinks being advertised on social media. Police are expanding the investigation under the assumption that there is a mastermind behind this scam and the suspects were merely carrying out orders.
