My Calling Is Profiler [EN]: Chapter 401

# Drugs are Like Dew

Korea is a drug-free country. At least, that’s what people used to say. But now, no one makes that claim anymore. They simply can’t.

Rather, drug investigations in Korea are notoriously slow and incompetent, to the point where it’s fair to say a proper investigation system barely exists.

“Seriously, how did it come to this?” Lee Ji-soo asked, watching the news with a look of exasperation.

“Because we used to believe we were a drug-free country. So, naturally, unnecessary systems were dismantled.”

But once drugs started circulating again, the means to control them had vanished.

“Plus, times have changed.”

Compared to the methods of the past, there are now far too many ways to distribute drugs.

“From drop-offs to deliveries, even using quick service couriers, 택배 [Korean postal service], and drones.”

Drop-offs involve hiding drugs in a pre-arranged location, and once the buyer sends the money, revealing the location. Deliveries involve hiring someone online to deliver them. Officially, it’s chicken or pizza, but inside, there are drugs.

“Well, white powder in chicken is just salt, right?”

“Exactly.”

On top of that, quick service couriers will bring anything right away for a fee, so there’s little risk of getting caught. And in the case of drones, delivery is possible quietly, completely out of sight.

“Drugs are increasing, but experts are nonexistent.”

Park Do-joon clicked his tongue and checked the records.

“These bastards aren’t going to talk. We should honestly give up on this angle.”

“Yes, is there really no way for you either, Detective Park?”

“None.”

Park Do-joon drew a firm line.

“How many lawyers are attached to those people, including Jin Ah-rin?”

Each time they’re questioned, at least three lawyers accompany them, and the lawyers consult with each other for at least three minutes before answering a single question.

If they think it’s disadvantageous, they even exercise their right to remain silent.

“Moreover, drug penalties are so weak in Korea.”

“True. Didn’t someone import tens of kilograms before and get off with a slap on the wrist?”

“Right.”

Park Do-joon said, sounding fed up. A chaebol [large family-owned conglomerate] daughter imported tens of kilograms of drugs, but, of course, the Korean prosecution didn’t punish her. They couldn’t.

“But this time, they’ve completely changed direction. Those damn bastards.”

Currently, the scions of chaebol families, including Jin Ah-rin, are claiming, ‘We didn’t know what we were taking was drugs. We just took what someone else gave us.’

“It would be one thing if they just claimed that.”

“Yeah, exactly. It would be one thing if they just claimed that.”

The problem is that there’s someone claiming to have bought it for them. Specifically, Jin Ah-rin’s secretary said he bought it for her, and he spouted nonsense about buying the drugs to get her addicted and make her do whatever he told her to do.

“It’s obvious without even looking.”

In this case, none of the chaebol kids, including Jin Ah-rin, will be punished, and only that guy will be punished. In this case, the chaebol kids are all victims.

“And that secretary bastard will get a hefty sum of money.”

“Could it be that he really bought it for them?”

“Would he do that? Addicting them to drugs to control them? Of course, that’s possible, and it actually happens. But that’s only possible when there’s physical confinement.”

Without physical confinement, they can just run away, and even if they don’t, do you think the chaebol kids can’t get their hands on drugs?

“Control through drugs isn’t about the addiction itself, but about being in a firm position where you’re the only one who can supply it.”

That’s why it’s possible in cases where prostitutes are deliberately addicted to drugs or kidnappers forcibly addict their victims to drugs, but it’s absolutely impossible in this case.

“Rather, if he really did that, the chaebol kids would probably have him filleted alive.”

The problem is that there are victims, lawyers, and a perpetrator. Naturally, it’s impossible to attack them by making an issue out of it.

“Moreover, the problem is that he’s Jin Ah-rin’s secretary.”

“Why?”

“It’s a clue to who the leader of that organization is.”

“From that?”

“Yeah, it’s likely that the boss of those drug club guys is Jin Ah-rin.”

“Not just anyone?”

“Not at all.”

It’s difficult for someone to take the blame and go to jail for money. Of course, if a chaebol family persuades them, they have no choice but to be dragged along. If they refuse, they can ruin their own lives.

“And even if he refuses, there are plenty of guys who would do it.”

“But how did you know that Jin Ah-rin is the leader of that group?”

“She’s Jin Ah-rin’s secretary. And the time it took for him to confess was too short.”

If there was a persuasion process, it would have taken at least a day, or two at most. In the worst case, it could have taken three or four days.

“But the total time it took to confess was four hours. Too short for a persuasion time.”

Even before the first news came out, the narrative was already flowing in the direction that the chaebol families were victims of crime, not that it was a drug case involving a chaebol family.

“It was a kind of setup.”

“Hmm.”

Someone takes the blame when a problem arises and goes to jail instead. If there wasn’t that setup, there’s no way a solution would have come out this quickly.

“Ah, it’s probably true that the secretary is the supplier.”

To be exact, he was probably buying and supplying drugs according to Jin Ah-rin’s orders.

“Plus, that guy also has three lawyers. If he were a regular person, he would usually hire one lawyer, not three.”

“That’s true.”

In other words, it’s a pre-prepared, thoroughly prepared setup.

“Maybe the Jindo Group set it up in preparation for an emergency.”

Park Do-joon said, narrowing his eyes. The Jindo Group is capable of that. We clashed once before; they’re not exactly a righteous company.

“Moreover, Jin Ah-rin is the third child. And she’s a woman. She’s out of the management rights area anyway. And some companies discard those they don’t think are worth inheriting management rights to prevent management disputes.”

Lee Ji-soo was startled by that.

“You mean Jin Ah-rin is a target for disposal?”

“Yeah, of course, they can’t kill her. But instead, they provide all sorts of entertainment to prevent her from doing her job. We saw a case like that last time.”

And the fact that a child of a large corporation gets involved with drugs is a very serious disqualification in itself.

“Moreover, the Jindo Group has an extremely patriarchal culture.”

It’s hard to expect Jin Ah-rin, as a daughter, to be treated properly.

“No, aren’t they even going to marry her off?”

“Why would they marry her off? Absolutely not.”

Park Do-joon scoffed. If Jin Ah-rin gets married, they have to divide the property according to the law. Naturally, that money goes to the other family she marries into.

“They make her addicted to drugs to lower her marketability.”

Lee Ji-soo frowned at the word ‘marketability’ but couldn’t deny it. She had seen the case before.

“Anyway, the important thing is that we won’t be able to get any information from them through Jin Ah-rin.”

“I think so too. That secretary bastard is claiming he received it through a drop-off.”

The place he claims to have received it through a drop-off was a fire hydrant near his apartment.

“And the most troublesome thing is this Vanilla guy.”

“Seriously, Detective Park, that’s too much. What are we supposed to do with this? The police have been tracking him for years. How are we supposed to catch him?”

It’s no joke, the police have been gritting their teeth and running around trying to catch Vanilla for at least five years. But he’s so meticulous that he never gets caught. His nickname, Vanilla, also stuck because the name ‘Vanilla’ is written on his sales items. In fact, they don’t even know his gender, let alone his real name.

“Could it be a woman? The nickname is too feminine.”

“I don’t know. It’s a nickname we gave him.”

Unless he calls himself that, if the police give him the name Vanilla, there’s no way to know if it’s correct or not.

“Isn’t it a bit feminine that the product name is Vanilla?”

“It’s the product name. You can’t exactly say ‘This is drugs’ when sending it by quick service.”

Of course, there are slang terms for drugs on the internet, like ‘ice’ or ‘hookah.’ But the police know that too, and there are so many quick service delivery cases that even some quick service drivers know that it’s a slang term for drugs.

“So you can’t send 택배 [Korean postal service] or quick service with that name. But if you say Vanilla, you don’t suspect it, right?”

“True. There’s vanilla syrup and vanilla powder.”

They won’t suspect it because they’ll just think it’s baking supplies.

“The important thing is that Vanilla is taking up more than half of the Seoul and Gyeonggi area.”

Park Do-joon said that with a serious face.

“Maybe this guy isn’t an individual. The scale is too big to be an individual.”

It has to be a large organization, a very large organization.

“Well, it’s not a scale that an individual can cover.”

“It’s not just that problem.”

“Yes?”

“If it were just that problem, we would have caught him somehow.”

Park Do-joon said with a bitter smile.

“Do you know when Vanilla first started operating?”

“I don’t know.”

“It was five years ago.”

To be exact, the mark Vanilla was on the drugs collected from a drug dealer, and because of that, they didn’t initially recognize the drug dealer Vanilla.

“The drug market is an underground market. There’s a limit to growth. Even if you promote it, there are hardly any people who look for it.”

Because promotion is done secretly, there’s a limit to the rapid growth of power.

“But 5 years… No, since we officially judged that he had eaten more than half of the Seoul and Gyeonggi area two years ago, he grew that much in three years. Even if we didn’t recognize it before, it would have been a matter of time before Vanilla, who showed this much growth, was caught by us, so it would have been four years at most.”

A drug dealer named Vanilla, who suddenly grew rapidly in four years and ate up the Seoul and Gyeonggi drug market.

“Drugs aren’t something you can just expand the factory with. All transactions are done in kind. You wouldn’t do this much drugs in cash; it would probably be done in Bitcoin.”

Of course, the Korean police can’t track all Bitcoin transactions.

“It’s hard to secure that much Bitcoin, and it’s even harder to secure a drug dealer who trades in Bitcoin.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, Bitcoin is emerging as the core of illegal money transactions, but criminals still prefer cash.”

So there are many guys who just try to get paid in cash. In the first place, there aren’t that many drug dealers who trade in Bitcoin in earnest.”

천직이 프로파일러 [A Natural-Born Profiler]