Kim Hyeong-ryeol (51), known by the alias ‘Sara Kim’ and called one of Southeast Asia’s ‘three major drug lords’, has had a 25-year prison term finalized by the Supreme Court. His son (26), who was tried as an accomplice, was acquitted.

The Supreme Court’s First Division (Presiding Justice Seo Kyung-hwan) recently finalized a lower court ruling that sentenced Kim to 25 years in prison and ordered him to complete 80 hours of a drug addiction rehabilitation program on charges including violation of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes (psychotropic drugs), it said on the 2nd. It also finalized an acquittal for Kim’s son, who was indicted alongside him.

Kim, known as ‘Sara Kim’, was referred to as one of the ‘three major drug lords in Southeast Asia’. While residing in Vietnam from 2018, he is accused of supplying drugs into South Korea through 2021. He traded via Telegram with domestic distributors, selling methamphetamine and synthetic cannabis, and he also injected the drugs himself. Kim was placed on wanted lists by investigative agencies nationwide, including Seoul, Gyeonggi, Incheon, Gangwon, Busan, and South Gyeongsang, before being apprehended in Vietnam in July 2022 and forcibly repatriated to Korea. In March 2021, his son allegedly received an instruction from his father, Kim, to “make a deposit without a bankbook so that imported items can be delivered,” and used a post office ATM to remit 390,000 won via accountless transfer.

Kim has been identified as the top overall coordinator of Southeast Asian drug smuggling who distributed and supplied drugs to Park Wang-yeol (47), the main culprit in the ‘Philippine Sugarcane Field Murder Case’ and known as ‘Worldwide’, and to defector-turned drug lord Choi Jeong-ok (38). Investigators believe Kim was the force behind Park’s rise to prominence in the Telegram drug scene after he escaped from prison. Park was apprehended in the Philippines in October 2020 and is currently incarcerated in a Philippine prison.

In the first trial, Kim was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and Kim’s son was sentenced to five years. On appeal, the same term was imposed on Kim, while the son’s conviction was overturned and he was acquitted. The appellate court stated, “Even if part of the charges alleging Kim’s methamphetamine use is judged not guilty, that is merely the tip of the iceberg of the overall criminal conduct,” adding, “Considering Kim’s overall crimes and the profits he illegally obtained, his culpability is very grave and does not warrant altering the sentence imposed by the court of first instance.” As for the son, the court said, “At the time, he was only 20 years old, and he had had little contact with his father before reaching adulthood and lacked social experience, so it cannot be ruled out that he accepted his father’s views as they were,” and explained, “Even if he recognized that Kim was engaged in drug-related offenses in Vietnam, comprehensive suspicion alone is insufficient to establish the indictment’s allegations.”

The issue on further appeal was whether the son could have at least recognized that depositing the shipping fee was connected to his father’s drug crimes.

The Supreme Court affirmed the appellate ruling. The appellate court found that, before the parcel was brought in, Kim’s son had not exchanged any calls or messages, via phone, text, Telegram, or otherwise, with his father or other accomplices, and thus acquitted him; the Supreme Court accepted this and dismissed the appeal.