I'm a digital nomad arrested at a Seoul club with a small bag of ketamine — I have no lease, no employer and a flight in a week. Does that make me a flight risk they'll detain?

For under a gram of ketamine with a positive test and no supply, detention is not the normal outcome — the police released you this morning, which means they did not seek a warrant on the spot — but the officer's remarks were not idle. Your profile is exactly the one that makes an investigator consider a departure suspension and, if the case cannot be closed quickly, the one that produces a suspended file with an entry flag when you leave. The way not to look like a flight risk is not to argue about it; it is to give the police a way to finish the case without you — counsel on record, an address on file, a statement complete — so that your leaving is a scheduled departure and not a disappearance. Eight days is enough for that if it starts today.

What this is under Korean law

Ketamine is a psychotropic substance under the Narcotics Control Act (마약류관리법, mayangnyu gwalli-beop); possession and use carry up to ten years' imprisonment or a fine of up to KRW 100 million under Article 60. Under a gram is a personal-use quantity; the police will have noted that you had no scale, no packaging for sale and no cash inconsistent with a night out. Possession and use are two counts; the disposition for a first-time visitor with a small quantity, an admission and cooperation is a suspension of indictment (기소유예, giso yuye) or a summary fine (약식명령, yaksik myeongnyeong); indictment and a suspended sentence follow where the file shows more.

Flight risk, in practice

A departure suspension (출국정지, chulguk jeongji) is requested by police when they believe a suspect may leave before the investigation can be completed; a foreign national with no lease, no employer and a booked onward flight is the textbook request. It is imposed by the Immigration Office and it stops you at the airport. Assume the request has been made or will be; confirm through counsel today.

What answers the concern is not a Korean address you do not have. It is a file in which the investigation is already complete: your statement is given and consistent; your test result is in; counsel has a power of attorney (위임장, wiimjang) and an address for service; your onward itinerary and contact details are provided; and you have undertaken, through counsel, to respond to any prosecutor's summons in writing and to pay any fine from abroad. On that file, police can refer the case, the prosecutor can dispose of it by summary order or suspension, and the departure suspension can be lifted or never imposed — because there is nothing left that requires your body in Korea.

Finishing before you leave

The police investigation for a case this size can be completed in days if you give it what it needs: one more interview, with counsel and an interpreter, at which the ketamine's source is the main question — answer truthfully; "a person at a club" is an answer — and the file is closed for referral. The prosecutor's decision may take weeks and can be made after you have gone, with counsel receiving it. A summary fine served on counsel and paid ends the case; a suspension of indictment ends it without a record. A case referred with a note that the suspect departed cooperatively, with counsel on record, is not a suspended file with a warrant; it is a pending file with a known address.

What produces the bad version is leaving without any of that: the summons unanswered, the police unable to complete the file, a suspension (기소중지, giso jungji) entered, and your name flagged for your next entry to Korea — which, for a nomad, may be sooner than you think.

Your situation as a foreign visitor

You are entitled to an interpreter and counsel. A conviction is a fact for any future entry; drug offenses are within the entry-refusal grounds; a suspension of indictment is not a conviction. Vietnam's entry rules are its own; a pending Korean case is not shared with Vietnamese immigration. MEGA X handles the criminal case.

What to do now, and what not to do

Today: retain counsel; sign the power of attorney; provide your itinerary and a reliable email. Do not use again while here. Do not go back to the club. Do not board without confirming the departure question the day before. Attend the second interview with counsel and treat it as the last thing the police need from you.

From a former police investigator's perspective

A sweep at a club produces a night's worth of small possession files, and the investigator's interest in each is how fast it can be referred. A visitor who returns the next day with a lawyer, a signed authority and a flight date is a file that can be referred by the end of the week with a recommendation for a fine. A visitor who vanishes is a file the investigator suspends without a second thought and a name he adds to a list; the list is read at Incheon, not in Hanoi.

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

— MEGA X Law Firm Korea, Criminal Defense Team