My Calling Is Profiler [EN]: Chapter 415

“Are you playing with words, you bastards?”

But Joo Kwang-won was grinning. Of course, he already knew they couldn’t escape, the evidence was undeniable.

“I know you guys are distributing Vanilla, you sons of bitches.”

“There seems to be a misunderstanding. We don’t deal with spices.”

“I know you’re dealing drugs, you bastard!”

“That’s a misunderstanding. I’m offended. I will strongly protest through the U.S. Embassy.”

Lauren said firmly. Since there was no hard evidence, he thought they would back down if he threatened to involve the U.S. Embassy. But the evidence was already overwhelming.

“Well, yeah, but this time, even the U.S. Embassy won’t be able to help you.”

“What?”

“I’ll show you something interesting.”

Joo Kwang-won took out his phone and played a video. The video showed a section of pipe. And the condition of the pipe was strange. The middle part was missing.

“So what about this?”

“I had a hard time holding back the stench because of this.”

“Stench?”

At that moment, with a gurgling sound, a torrent of water began to pour out of the pipe. Seeing the scene, Lauren’s face hardened.

A huge amount of pills began to spill out along with the water. And Lauren knew better than anyone what they were. It was the drugs they had flushed down the toilet.

“Just because you flush it down doesn’t mean it dissolves in water right away.”

Park Do-joon knew that they would dispose of the drugs through the toilet. So he instructed them to remove the middle section of the pipe. It wasn’t difficult to remove the pipe on the already vacant first floor and divert the flow from the exposed section. At first, the smell was overpowering, but that wasn’t the important thing.

Every time the sound of a toilet flushing was heard on the screen, a huge amount of drugs poured out with the water, and the police hurriedly used dryers to recover them, fearing they might dissolve.

“We recovered 100 kilograms of drugs that day. And you’re the only ones living on this floor.”

In other words, no one but them could have flushed the drugs down the toilet.

“Eeeek…!”

Lauren knew he was caught and gritted his teeth, but he couldn’t escape or resist, not with the police staring him down.

“You damn bastards, I caught you. Hehehe!”

Joo Kwang-won grinned as he looked at Lauren and the Vanilla gang, who were visibly seething.

“How is it going these days?”

“Ah, I’m bursting with joy. Absolutely bursting!”

In the end, Vanilla was wiped out. Of course, that wasn’t officially reported in the media. The higher-ups were eager to publicize their achievements in the news, but as Park Do-joon said, the priority was to destroy the distribution network of Korean drugs first, so they eventually turned it into an unofficial operation.

“And as you suggested, we are spreading fake drugs under the Vanilla brand on our end.”

“So, is it selling well?”

“It’s selling like crazy. Hehehe.”

Of course, it’s not real drugs. It has the Vanilla mark on it, but it’s just a vitamin. Since it has no effect, drug users are going crazy and coming to complain, only to be arrested on the spot.

“Thanks to you, I think we’ll be able to thoroughly crack down on drug offenders in the Seoul and Gyeonggi areas this time.”

“Well, it’s not difficult if you use your head a little.”

Park Do-joon said with a smile.

“But did you find the guys who are supplying from the United States?”

“Unfortunately, no one is talking. Han Ki-seung doesn’t seem to know anything at all.”

When Han Ki-seung was working at Wonang Cargo, the Vanilla gang approached him. Blinded by the promise of a huge reward, Han Ki-seung decided to join them.

The annual profit was tens of billions of won [equivalent to millions of US dollars], so there’s no way he wouldn’t be tempted. From his point of view, having watched the Jin-do Group chairman’s family make money by doing all sorts of dirty things, he saw this opportunity as a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

“Of course, the conclusion is that he ruined his life.”

“Thanks to you, we caught him fair and square.”

“You’re welcome.”

“But while interrogating Han Ki-seung, he told me a strange story.”

“A strange story?”

“He’s desperate now.”

In fact, he is said to be cooperating with the police as much as possible to reduce his sentence.

“Well, is it a story about another drug organization?”

“That’s not it. Isn’t it said that Chinese organizations are rampant in the drug market and are keeping each other in check?”

“That’s right.”

The only difference is that Chinese organizations operate more like violent gangs, while American organizations are structured more like corporations. But it is an undeniable fact that Korea is a tempting drug market for both.

In fact, drug enforcement itself is so weak that it is almost non-existent.

“Why, are they preparing for war or something?”

“That’s not it… They suddenly started kidnapping people.”

“Kidnapping?”

“Yes, I’ve already told the violent crimes unit, but…”

Regardless of its credibility, the higher-ups started to seriously investigate because it was information that could not be ignored.

“As you know, surprisingly, this kind of thing spreads fast within competing organizations.”

Even if the police don’t know their inside story, competing organizations often monitor each other more closely than you might think because they keep each other in check. In particular, for Vanilla, which is a corporate entity without any real muscle, it was important to monitor Chinese organizations with force in order to keep them in check.

“It seems like they’ve started doing it in earnest.”

Park Do-joon frowned at the words.

‘A drug organization is involved in kidnapping….’

That’s a very unusual development. Of course, it’s not that they’re too nice to do such things. But they usually avoid dangerous activities to avoid attracting the police’s attention.

“I need to look into it.”

Park Do-joon felt a chill down his spine, a sense of unease for reasons he couldn’t quite place.

# A Scam That Takes Lives

Park Do-joon wanted to solve the drug case and go straight to the kidnapping case, but he couldn’t. That’s because, even with the police watching closely, there is no information on where and how the kidnappings are happening.

“What are they doing?”

It’s a kidnapping case that could be happening anywhere in the country. Park Do-joon shook his head, frustrated by the incompetence of the higher-ups, who insisted that the investigation could only proceed if the area was identified first.

“Today, the world is full of incompetence.”

“Tell me about it.”

Lunch time. Park Do-joon and Lee Ji-soo’s eyes were glued to the broadcast. And on the broadcast, as always, the talking heads were raising their voices about insignificant stories.

-Where did all that budget go?

-The population decline is serious. To solve this….

-But it’s not being solved, is it?

Park Do-joon sipped the coffee in his paper cup, listening to the panelists on the broadcast.

“Try doing it like this for thousands of years. Will it be solved?”

“Senior, do you know why this can’t be solved?”

“This?”

“I’m talking about the low birth rate.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

Lee Ji-soo tilted her head, surprised. Korea is on the verge of collapse because it can’t solve the low birth rate, but Park Do-joon claims to know the answer?

“Actually, the answer is simple. In the end, this is also a problem of incompetence.”

“Yes?”

“The problem is not that they don’t know, but that they pretend not to know.”

Park Do-joon finished his coffee, crumpled the paper cup, threw it into the trash can, and said with a smirk.

“Do you know how much money Korea has spent trying to solve the low birth rate?”

“I know that they’ve spent at least 200 trillion won [approximately 150 billion US dollars].”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

The low birth rate budget that Korea has spent in 10 years is estimated to be at least 200 trillion won, and now they are spending an average of more than 40 trillion won [approximately 30 billion US dollars] a year on the low birth rate budget. And that’s the minimum.

Depending on the classification, some say it’s more than 400 trillion won [approximately 300 billion US dollars]. That’s how serious the low birth rate is in Korea.

“But why do you think it can’t be solved?”

“I don’t know?”

“Because it goes to the kids.”

“Yes? Isn’t that natural?”

“It’s not natural. Human beings prioritize their own survival.”

“What does that have to do with childbirth?”

“It’s simple. In the end, no matter how much money you put into a non-existent child, it’s still a non-existent child.”

Lee Ji-soo tilted her head, confused. A non-existent child?

“Ah, you’re unmarried, so you wouldn’t understand.”

“Senior, you’re unmarried too?”

“Ah, well, I am… but anyway… The important thing is that the payment target of that money is wrong.”

“Why?”

“Think about it simply. There are no children. What happens if you give them money?”

Of course, that money becomes wasted money.

Where do they spend that money? Of course, it goes into things that are supposedly for children.

“They say they’ll give you all kinds of support if you have a child. But what is that support?”

A little support from each local government and a little money depending on the situation. That’s the reality. Usually, it’s paid in the form of childcare subsidies.

“But now there is a shortage of daycare centers and kindergartens.”

In fact, there are not enough places in kindergartens, so you have to be selected through a lottery.

“But even if you give that money to kindergartens, it’s just money for the children who go there, so it’s meaningless for the children who don’t go there… no, can’t go there. The key to the low birth rate problem is not preparing in advance for non-existent children.”

Rather, the key to the low birth rate policy is to help parents prepare to care for their children when they have them.

“If you are prepared to have and care for a child, it is an animal’s instinct to have a child. The first thing a bird does to lay an egg is to build a nest.”

But would you have a child if you don’t even have enough to eat and your own survival is uncertain?

Even if you have a child, you’ll end up starving to death?

“Korea is exactly like that.”

If you have a child, it costs hundreds of millions of won [hundreds of thousands of US dollars] for tuition and living expenses. As prices rise, it increases over time. But Korea is a cruel world. They only give you enough to live on and then pressure you to have children.

“The real low birth rate policy is not to focus on the child, but to allow the adults who will have the child to survive.”

If they have enough money, they will naturally have children.

“The government doesn’t know that?”

“Don’t they know? They know.”

They know.

In fact, any scholar or expert who has studied the issue even a little would know this obvious thing.

“But why don’t they do it?”

“Because if they do, they won’t have any money to embezzle.”

For example, if the government directly gives 1 million won [approximately 750 US dollars] in subsidies to newly married couples with children, they are more likely to have children. Because the 1 million won in surplus funds can be used for children.

But instead, the government officials have nothing to embezzle.

“Instead, they say they’re building rental housing.”

Then they rent it to newlyweds for 1.6 million won [approximately 1200 US dollars] per month. From the beginning, there is a limit to the number of people who can afford to enter a rental apartment for 1.6 million won per month, so it is almost empty.

And in Korea, living in a rental apartment is often the target of belittling and humiliation.

“But from the perspective of officials, there’s no problem even if they embezzle about a third of the construction cost.”

In fact, if you go to a rental apartment these days, you can hear the noise from the next house because they are built so poorly. It’s not because they don’t have money.

The money is being spent, but it’s all being embezzled in the middle by subcontractors, sub-subcontractors, and sub-sub-subcontractors.