Foreigners who repeatedly purchase cosmetics at city duty free shops and cancel flights will be monitored by customs service in order to prevent the flow of duty free cosmetics into the domestic market.

According to officials at the Korea Customs Service and the ruling Democratic Party on Monday, foreigners displaying such irregularities will be banned from purchasing cosmetics for one year.

The customs service plans to examine foreigners who purchased over 50-million won worth of cosmetics and canceled flights five times or more during a three month period.  

It will inspect whether they are linked with merchants who purchase duty free products en masse to sell them to local consumers. Those found to be doing so will be banned from purchasing for one year.

The move comes amid concern that the duty free cosmetics purchased by foreigners are sold to South Korean consumers, thereby disrupting the market.

According to the Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea, more than 53-billion won worth of cosmetics were purchased duty free by some eight-thousand foreigners who later canceled their flights between 2014 and October 2016. 

The customs service also said that it will set up concrete measures to block sales of duty free cosmetics in the domestic market.