<Anchor>



Customs inspects cargo or luggage from overseas if there are suspicious things.

In some cases, goods are delivered to a warehouse designated by customs for overhaul, and the owner of the cargo has to pay a storage fee.

However, former officials of the Korea Customs Service are using this warehouse to make tens of billions of won each year.  



Correspondent Kim Jung-woo reported.



<Reporter>



A customs warehouse in Incheon Port.



Various boxes are loaded onto a conveyor belt and passed through an X-ray inspection stand.



It is a designated storage area where customs stores goods that require close inspection during moving or cargo from overseas.



There are 55 locations in major ports and airports across the country, only 26 are directly managed by customs, and the remaining 29 are managed by the Korea Customs and Trade Development Institute.



By the way, the Korea Customs Trade Development Institute is a former deputy chief who was the second-ranking officer of the Korea Customs Service, and four out of seven executives are retired from the Korea Customs Service.



The total amount of money that the Korea Customs and Trade Development Institute has earned through this designated storage yard business over the past 10 years is over 230 billion won.



Cargo owners have to leave their belongings here and pay storage fees if the customs decides, so retirees make money by swimming on the ground.



In addition, we have created an organization in the form of a corporation that is difficult to monitor from outside and continue to operate despite the controversy over preferential treatment.



[Yoo Dong-soo / National Assembly Planning and Finance Committee member: We will change the general competition to a private contract and break the cycle that drives work to the company where the retiree works.

We will review the revision of the Customs Act.]



The Korea Customs Service has announced that it will lower the barriers to entry so that other organizations can participate in the bidding in the future, but unless a thorough legal and institutional mechanism is in place, it will not be easy to break the practice of public courtesy.



(Video coverage: Yang Doo-won, Yang Ji-hoon, video editing: Lee So-young, VJ: Kim Sang-hyuk)