The largest cannabis smuggling case in South Korean history has been uncovered.

That’s literally what happened.

A Japanese-Korean man in his 50s, A (53), who is accused of bringing the largest amount of cannabis ever smuggled into South Korea, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison by prosecutors.

When prosecutors request a 20-year sentence, it means they are asking the judge, “Please sentence this person to 20 years in prison.”

What comes next is the sentencing we normally think of as the first trial sentence.
The judge makes that decision.

A, a Japanese-Korean man.

So, he was a yakuza member.

He is reportedly a member of Kudo-kai (工藤會).

A yakuza member, after all?
He certainly went big.

The amount was

636 kg.

That’s reportedly enough for 1.27 million people to smoke at the same time.

Daejeon has a total population of about 1.44 million, and around 1.2 million people are aged 20 or older.

So, it’s roughly enough for almost every adult in Daejeon to smoke cannabis at the same time.

Its estimated street value is a staggering 95.4 billion won.
Just a little more and it would have been close to 100 billion won.

So where on earth did they get that much cannabis?

Thailand.

Thailand legalized medical cannabis in 2018 and gradually began loosening its cannabis laws.
In June 2022, cannabis was removed from the country’s list of narcotic drugs, bringing Thailand close to full legalization in practice.

Of course, restrictions were soon added, including age restrictions, restrictions for pregnant women, and restrictions on where people could smoke.
But for a while, you could smell cannabis almost anywhere on the streets at night.

Then, on June 23, 2025, the regulations were tightened significantly.
But still…

This isn’t Cheetos or Doritos.
If cannabis has already spread that widely, can simply tightening the regulations really control it?

I don’t think so.

That’s how someone could still get their hands on 600 kg of cannabis.

600 kg may sound like just a number.

For comparison,
a large napa cabbage used for kimchi can weigh around 3 kg.
So this is roughly the same weight as 200 large cabbages.

If someone said, “I thought it was just cabbage leaves. I brought it in by mistake. Please let me go,”
that’s almost enough cannabis to make even that excuse sound believable.

Normally, this would be where we talk about the punishment and what happens next.

But this case is different.

The story inside this case is almost as big as the amount of cannabis itself.

First, the defense claims that this was an entrapment operation.

If it was illegal entrapment, the prosecution itself can be dismissed.
In some cases, the defendant could even be acquitted.

That’s why the defense is clearly asking for something specific.

They’re not simply saying, “It was entrapment, so please reduce the sentence.”

They are asking the court to dismiss the prosecution, or at the very least, impose the lightest possible sentence.

So what exactly happened for them to make such a request?

First, in January this year, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service received information that a large-scale drug shipment would be smuggled into the country by ship.
A claims that the informant lured him into participating in the crime.
He therefore claims that this was an entrapment operation.

The Supreme Court clearly distinguishes between different types of entrapment.

Opportunity-providing entrapment
This is when a person already has the intention to commit a crime, and investigators provide that person with an opportunity to commit it.
The person is not automatically free from punishment simply because an undercover or entrapment operation was used.
However, the circumstances may be considered when determining the sentence.

On the other hand,

Entrapment that induces criminal intent
This is when a person who had no intention of committing a crime is actively persuaded or induced by investigators to commit one, creating the criminal intent in the first place.
In such a case, the prosecution itself can be considered invalid, resulting in dismissal of the case.

The difference between the two can be enormous.

A’s claim is this:

He says he was deeply in debt and was clearly persuaded with an offer that could solve all of his financial problems.
He also claims that something on this scale was absolutely impossible for him to carry out alone and that there were people above him who were actually running the operation.
The prosecution, he claims, did not go after those people and instead was more interested in using him to boost its investigation record.

He reportedly admitted his own involvement and provided information about his accomplices, meaning that A was highly cooperative with the investigation.

But A also has a previous conviction from 2016.
He was sentenced to six years in prison for, among other offenses, possessing about 956 grams of methamphetamine, worth approximately 3.1 billion won at the time, after bringing it from China with the intention of exporting it back to Japan.

Because of this previous drug conviction, he will apparently have a lot to prove.

Now, back to how the crime actually happened.

As the intelligence indicated, 636 kg of cannabis was loaded at Laem Chabang Port, a major port in Chon Buri Province, Thailand.
By this point, A was already involved in the operation with four Vietnamese members of a drug-selling organization.
The four Vietnamese nationals are currently wanted through an Interpol Red Notice.

Then the joint investigation team tracked the ship.

When it arrived at Incheon Port, investigators seized the cannabis.

And then…

Instead of simply taking the cannabis away,

they moved it to the warehouse where it was originally supposed to be delivered
and waited for the person who was supposed to pick it up.

Then the person arrived.

That person was A, and he was arrested.

If A’s claim is not accepted,

then this was simply

a decoy operation,
just a method of investigation,

and it has nothing to do with whether he is punished or not.

After all, if you’re trying to catch someone who brought in this much cannabis, investigators need to be able to do more than simply confiscate the drugs.

If they just took the cannabis away and let everyone go,

the criminals could basically say, “Wow, we almost got caught. Next time, let’s only bring in 300 kg!”

And that would give them another chance.

Of course,
I also have no doubt that there was someone above A.

Someone capable of purchasing nearly 100 billion won worth of cannabis
wouldn’t normally jump into the smuggling operation personally.

A was probably just the person carrying out the job.

But even if there were people above him,
if they haven’t been caught, that’s all we can say for now.

For A,
the first thing that needs to be determined is clearly whether this was entrapment or not.

Although… I have a feeling he might have done it even without the trap.