ID :
203426
Thu, 08/25/2011 - 09:55
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/203426
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Five men booked for illegal sales of military goods
SEOUL, Aug. 25 (Yonhap) -- Five men were booked on Thursday on charges of illegally selling military goods on the local black market, Seoul police said.
Four of them are suspected of running unauthorized shops selling military items believed to have been smuggled out of U.S. military camps in South Korea and Korean military units since 2000, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said.
Among the goods sold were training missiles, missile launchers and gas masks used by the U.S. troops as well as night vision binoculars and walkie-talkies used by the local army, according to the police.
The other man booked in the latest crackdown is suspected of having sold about 300 counterfeit Korean military jackets smuggled from China through the Internet and in a local shop since 2009.
The training missiles sold were not made to explode, but they could have been rigged to do so with the addition of key parts, the police said.
The agency said the men may have secured the illegal goods from local flea markets or private enterprises handling military waste, who were supposed to cut missiles and launchers into pieces before discarding them.
The men's sales of military gadgets and clothing mostly catered to local collectors who used them for display or survival games, the police said. The agency gathered serial numbers of the military goods they confiscated and gave them to U.S. military authorities in order to track how they ended up in the retailers' hands.
Regarding the fake uniforms that were made in China to look almost indistinguishable from original ones, the police said such illegal sales of military goods were very risky because they could be misused by terrorists or other enemies to mess up the domestic army's military strategies.
"If the fake uniforms found their way to a terror ring or the North Korean military, they might have been used in attacks on the local military or made it hard for local soldiers to pick out an enemy, causing chaos," a police official said.
pbr@yna.co.kr
Four of them are suspected of running unauthorized shops selling military items believed to have been smuggled out of U.S. military camps in South Korea and Korean military units since 2000, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said.
Among the goods sold were training missiles, missile launchers and gas masks used by the U.S. troops as well as night vision binoculars and walkie-talkies used by the local army, according to the police.
The other man booked in the latest crackdown is suspected of having sold about 300 counterfeit Korean military jackets smuggled from China through the Internet and in a local shop since 2009.
The training missiles sold were not made to explode, but they could have been rigged to do so with the addition of key parts, the police said.
The agency said the men may have secured the illegal goods from local flea markets or private enterprises handling military waste, who were supposed to cut missiles and launchers into pieces before discarding them.
The men's sales of military gadgets and clothing mostly catered to local collectors who used them for display or survival games, the police said. The agency gathered serial numbers of the military goods they confiscated and gave them to U.S. military authorities in order to track how they ended up in the retailers' hands.
Regarding the fake uniforms that were made in China to look almost indistinguishable from original ones, the police said such illegal sales of military goods were very risky because they could be misused by terrorists or other enemies to mess up the domestic army's military strategies.
"If the fake uniforms found their way to a terror ring or the North Korean military, they might have been used in attacks on the local military or made it hard for local soldiers to pick out an enemy, causing chaos," a police official said.
pbr@yna.co.kr
