A 90-year-old woman in South Korea has been sentenced to one year in prison for helping her son launder drug trafficking proceeds. The woman received a total of $260,800 in nine instances between April 2020 and February 2022, which she transferred to a designated account as instructed by her son, a court in Incheon said.
Her son, identified as Song in reports, has been imprisoned in Cambodia since 2020 after being convicted of methamphetamine trafficking in the country. Given that Song’s mother visited Cambodia five times in 2019 and knew her son had been detained, she would have been aware she was handling illicit funds.
"Her actions made it more difficult to trace illegal profits and contributed to the spread of drugs, making the criminal act particularly serious," said Judge Wi Eun-suk of an Incheon district court on Monday. The court considered the woman’s age in its sentencing decision, as well as the fact that she had no prior drug-related convictions.
South Korean authorities are seeking to extradite Song from Cambodia, according to local reports. Song, who is in his 60s, is suspected of also involving his daughter. His daughter faced trial on charges of receiving over 600 million won in illicit funds and transferring 274 million of it. However, she was later cleared of money laundering charges after the court found insufficient evidence to conclude she knew the money came from drug trafficking.