Police raided my apartment because my roommate was dealing from it — I'm on an E-7 and I knew nothing. How exposed am I as the co-tenant?

You cannot be charged for drugs sold from an apartment on your lease unless the evidence shows you knew and participated — possession and trafficking require knowledge and control, and a lease is neither. Your negative test, your empty room and your phone are the evidence that you are a co-resident and not a co-defendant, and the police released you on that basis; what they are still checking is whether anything in your phone or your finances connects you to his business. Getting "formally cleared" means a non-referral or a note in the file that you are a witness, and it is obtained by a lawyer asking for it with your account attached, not by waiting. The apartment is a separate problem, and it is yours, because the lease is.

What this is under Korean law

Possession of methamphetamine for sale is an offense under Article 60 of the Narcotics Control Act (마약류관리법, mayangnyu gwalli-beop) and, at "significant" quantities, within the aggravated trafficking provisions — a case that will end with your roommate in prison. Liability for what another person kept in his own room requires, for you, knowledge of the substance and some act of possession, supply or assistance; Korean law does not impose vicarious liability on a tenant for a co-tenant's crime, and courts have not treated a lease as evidence of participation. Providing premises knowing they are used for drug sales can be charged as aiding; providing a room to someone who turns out to be a dealer cannot.

What the police are still looking at

Three things. Your phone: contact with his customers, references to "product," money. Your finances: transfers to or from him beyond rent, or cash you cannot explain. Your statements: consistency between the dawn interview and any later one. If none of those produces anything — and on your account none will — you are a witness. Investigators in a trafficking case want a witness who can describe the roommate's comings and goings, visitors and habits; you will be asked, and truthful answers help both the case against him and your own position.

You are entitled to counsel and an interpreter at any further interview; your first statement, given after hours of questioning through interpretation at night, should be reviewed by counsel. If you were asked to consent to a phone examination, the scope of what was viewed matters.

Getting cleared

Counsel contacts the investigating unit, confirms your status, submits a written account with the test result and a summary of your finances, and requests that you be recorded as a co-resident witness rather than a suspect. Where the police are satisfied, the case against you is closed with a non-referral (불송치, bulsongchi), leaving no record. Ask for the disposition in writing. A departure suspension (출국정지, chulguk jeongji) may have been requested for both residents on the night of the raid; confirm and have it lifted as part of the same request.

Your situation as a foreign national

A closed case has no effect on your E-7. Your employer is not notified; a raid at a residential address does not reach an employer unless you tell them. MEGA X handles the criminal side.

The apartment

The lease is yours, so the rent, the unit and its condition are yours. Your roommate's belongings are his; the police may have seized some and will return the rest to him or his family, and you should not dispose of anything without a written instruction from the police or from him through counsel. Tell the landlord, in writing, that a police matter involving the other occupant occurred and that you are the sole occupant going forward; a landlord who learns of the raid from neighbors will assume the worst about the leaseholder. If you want out of the lease, this is a circumstance in which many landlords agree to early termination; put the request in writing.

Do not let him, his friends or anyone claiming to collect his things into the apartment without the police's or the landlord's knowledge. Change the locks with the landlord's agreement.

What to do now, and what not to do

Retain counsel and have your status confirmed this week. Do not contact your roommate or accept calls from his associates; report any such contact to your lawyer. Do not touch his room. Document the apartment's state with photographs. Tell your landlord.

From a former police investigator's perspective

Search warrants on shared apartments produce two residents and one dealer, and investigators sort them the same night — the test, the rooms, the phones. A co-resident with a negative test, an empty room, a phone with nothing and a consistent account is a witness by morning. What keeps him on the file is silence: nobody has asked to take him off it, and the investigator has a trafficking case to run. One letter does it.

Contact us this week — text consultation or +82-2-522-3959.

— MEGA X Law Firm Korea, Criminal Defense Team