South Korea to extradite Telegram drug kingpin

Park Wang-yeol, dubbed the “Telegram drug kingpin,” will be extradited from the Philippines to South Korea on March 25. He faces charges of running a monthly narcotics operation valued at about 30 billion won, or $22 million, through Telegram, even while serving a prison sentence for murder.

A joint transnational crime task force, including the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Intelligence Service, prosecution, and police, said it will take custody of Park under a temporary extradition arrangement on the morning of March 25. The system allows authorities to temporarily transfer a suspect serving a sentence or facing trial abroad to support an investigation. The task force plans to investigate allegations that Park orchestrated large-scale drug trafficking from the Philippines into South Korea.

Park previously ran a seafood distribution business in South Korea before moving to the Philippines in the early 2010s, where he entered the casino and illegal gambling industry. He was later identified as the key suspect in the 2016 “sugarcane field murder case,” in which three South Koreans were killed, and was arrested by Philippine police.

Authorities believe Park escaped from custody in October 2019, formed a drug trafficking organization and began distributing narcotics through Telegram. He was rearrested in October 2020, and the Philippine Supreme Court later upheld a 60-year prison sentence on murder and related charges. Even after his return to prison, Park is suspected of continuing to run a drug network using a mobile phone under the alias “Jeonsegye,” meaning “worldwide,” funneling drugs worth tens of billions of won into South Korea each month.

Police have designated the Gyeonggi Northern Provincial Police Agency as the lead investigative body and are preparing to launch a full-scale probe. The agency arrested another suspected drug ring leader, Choi Jeong-ok (39), in 2022, who is believed to have had dealings with Park, and has made several attempts to secure Park’s custody. Those efforts were constrained by his imprisonment in the Philippines, but investigators now expect to establish the full scope of his trafficking network following the transfer.

Authorities also plan to incorporate findings from a separate investigation by the South Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency, which in 2021 dismantled “Vatican Kingdom,” identified as Park’s main domestic distribution channel.

Park has been widely described as one of the “three major Southeast Asian drug lords,” alongside Choi and Kim Hyeong-ryeol (52), who was arrested in Vietnam in 2022 and forcibly repatriated to South Korea. Park is also said to have inspired a character in the drama “Casino.”

President Lee Jae-myung requested Park’s temporary extradition during a summit with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on March 3. The transfer was finalized about a month later following consultations between the two governments.


조승연기자 cho@donga.com