Military equipment traded on black market

Authorities find training missiles, launchers; worried about potential use by terrorists, N.K.


Seoul police booked five men without detention Thursday on charges of selling military articles including fake field jackets and scrapped U.S. training missiles.

According to Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, a 54-year-old man identified only as Yoon and four others ran unlicensed military surplus shops in Itaewon in Seoul and Dongducheon in Gyeonggi Province.

They sold guided missile launchers for mid-air interception, missiles for training, gas masks, night vision goggles bulletproof vests, mobile phone walkie-talkies and other military items, investigators said. Missiles and missile launchers are suspected of being leaked from U.S. army bases in Korea. 

A 35-year-old named Kim, one of the five, operated an offline shop and an internet shopping mall specializing in military items from 2004 to 2009. He sold about 300 Chinese-forged military field jackets brought here through peddlers.

Missiles for training, which they trafficked, were not explosive and had been deactivated, police said, but could be activated if mounted with necessary parts. In the case of discarding missiles, the items should be chopped into pieces and then welded, but they were sold in their original form.

Military articles they acquired through flea markets in Seoul and companies which dispose of wasted military gear were sold for the use in survival games or for decoration.

Police told the U.S. military authorities the serial numbers of the seized goods, asking them to help ferret out traffickers.

The military uniforms seized from Kim were forgeries and looked the same or very similar in patterns and textiles to U.S. troops’ field jackets and desert camouflages worn by Zaytun, the Korean unit that was deployed to Iraq.

According to police, the jackets were so well faked that even military insiders would have a hard time telling which ones were genuine.

“The uniforms could be possessed and abused by terrorists and North Korean military to attack Korean and U.S. soldiers, and also make it difficult to identify friends from foes, confusing military operation,” a police official told the Yonhap news agency. “Now that the military is working on new uniforms, we will step up to crack down on military goods traffickers.”

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)