CAMP RED CLOUD, South Korea — Three illegal foreign nationals tried to sell methamphetamine to an undercover Army investigator and were arrested by South Korean police in Dongducheon last week, officials said Tuesday.
A Criminal Investigation Command special agent posed as a U.S. servicemember a few blocks from Camp Casey’s main gate during a June 19 joint sting operation with local police, a Yangju police official said Tuesday.
The investigator offered to buy a half-gram of methamphetamine for $500 from the three women in the Bosandong bar district known as “The Ville.”
They arrested three Philippines nationals, ages 21, 28 and 31, whose names were not immediately available. Each of the women was in the country illegally and has no relation to U.S. Forces Korea, officials said.
“Those involved in the drug trafficking get the drugs into Korea via postal mail, after contacting the drug providers in the Philippines by e-mail,” the Yangju police official said.
Army investigators asked for cooperation in May, when rumors began circulating that drug dealers were targeting U.S. servicemembers because it gave them less chance of being caught than if they sold to the South Korean public, the official said.
One of the women typically distributed marijuana and methamphetamine to the two others, police alleged.
Police believe the women conducted four or five deals since November, earning $550 for the marijuana and $1,000 for the methamphetamine.
The women told investigators that they don’t know which servicemembers bought the drugs because none of them offered their real names.
Two of the women tested positive for drug use after police-administered tests, Yangju officials said. The third woman’s test result was not yet ready.
Police are continuing to pursue whether any others were selling drugs, and say they also are trying to locate the drug distributors.
Two other Filipinas — both married to U.S. soldiers — are to appear in court Friday on charges they helped smuggle methamphetamine into South Korea and then used the drug.
Irine Melendy and Rosalie Gieselman have said in court and in interviews with Stars and Stripes they didn’t know a package that arrived at Gieselman’s Uijeongbu house on March 19 contained 15.1 grams of methamphetamine hidden in slippers.
They say two Philippines men needed someone to sign for the package, and to have an address to which it could be delivered from the Philippines.
The men live and work in South Korea but have no apparent connection to the U.S. military and no SOFA protection.
Gieselman, who is eight months pregnant, has admitted to using drugs in South Korea.
Melendy, who is 25 and has been married to a U.S. soldier for nearly six years, has admitted to using drugs in the past but not in South Korea.
