Four Filipino sailors accused of smuggling nearly one-thousand-700 kilograms of cocaine through Okgye Port in Gangneung, Gangwon Province, will face trial. 

The Gangneung branch of the Chuncheon District Public Prosecutors’ Office said Wednesday that two of the four crew members were indicted on Tuesday last week under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes, while the other two were indicted on Wednesday on aiding and abetting charges. 

Two of the four Filipinos are accused of concealing some one-thousand-690 kilograms of cocaine in 56 packs on a vessel without the captain’s knowledge, after getting the drugs from boats near Peru from drug cartel members operating in Latin America in early February. 

The other two sailors are accused of failing to alert the vessel’s captain to the presence of the drugs on board. 

The vessel entered Okgye Port on May 2 after passing through Dangjin Port in South Chungcheong Province and two ports in China. 

Police and customs officials found the cocaine after searching the boat based on intelligence that a vessel was set to enter the port carrying suspected narcotics. 

Police are also taking steps to request an Interpol Red Notice for the arrest of four crew members who got off the vessel before the boat entered Okgye Port. 

Investigators suspect that South Korea was not the final destination for the cocaine and are trying to determine where it was ultimately headed.