In Chongjin, North Hamkyung Province, officials and a hospital director who colluded to produce and sell narcotics on hospital grounds have been exposed, causing shock.
An inside source from the Province relayed the information to Daily NK by phone on the 1st; “People who produced the narcotics after receiving a commission from a Chinese narcotics organization were arrested. Officials implicated in this incident are expected to be targeted one after the other.”
According to the source, the people arrested in the narcotics production incident are primary party secretaries, including Mr. Goh who worked as the person-in-charge of the “Revolutionary Records and Historical Preservation Office” in Chongjin, the director, dispensary chief, and doctors at the Chongjin Hospital.
Mr. Goh, who is suspected of being the ringleader of the incident, is the descendant of a person affiliated with the Chongryon (General Association of North Korean Residents in Japan) who was repatriated to North Korea in the 1960s, and had earned special recognition for showing his ability to import the necessary resources for preserving the documents in the Revolutionary Records and Historical Preservation Office via relatives in China and Japan.
The source said, “While Goh was coming in and out of China in order to bring in necessary resources for preserving the historical site, he was commissioned for the production of 50kg of narcotic by Chinese dealers and was given ephedrine for producing the drugs.”
This incident was detected when a hospital staff member reported the clandestine production of narcotics in a hospital dispensary to the anti-Socialist Inspection group.
The source said, “Due to the reporting of the hospital personnel, Goh’s bringing in of equipment and producing narcotics on a mass-scale with the assistance of the director, pharmacists and doctors of this hospital were discovered. At the time of the inspections, 24kg of narcotics, which had not been disposed of in the hospital and the hospital dispensary, were confiscated.”
The source relayed, “As a result of this incident, several officials, including primary party secretaries in Chongjin, were caught one after the other. The reason for this is that the high-ranking officials in Chongjin, despite being aware of these acts, connived with them to hide the narcotics business and actively abetted them under the pretext of obtaining foreign-currency.”
The source said, “Producing and selling narcotics without the approval of the state is considered a huge crime. This incident, in particular, resulted from the request of a Chinese narcotics organization, so the suspects will not be released quickly. The related parties have been transported to the National Security Agency and are currently undergoing an investigation.”
