Fourteen people, including a doctor who administered anesthesia without legitimate medical purposes and secretly filmed unconscious patients, have been caught by police.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said on the 24th that it had booked two doctors, one hospital administrative director, and 11 users on charges including violations of the Narcotics Control Act, quasi-indecent assault, and illegal filming with a camera under the Sexual Violence Punishment Act. Among them, a doctor identified as A and one user were arrested.
A is suspected of administering medical narcotics such as propofol 71 times to seven people who visited his clinic seeking sedation over about two years from November 2021, pocketing 40 million won. Patients were found to have paid 350,000 won per session for this. This amounts to about 31.7 times the drug's cost.
Police suspect that A also committed sex crimes against patients under anesthesia, separate from his illegal drug administration business. A is charged with illegally filming patients' bodies 27 times from July 2021 to February the following year. He denied the related allegations, but police obtained an arrest warrant based on evidence secured through a search and seizure.
A doctor identified as B, who was in partnership at the same clinic, was also found to have continued illegal drug administration in a similar manner. B is suspected of administering propofol, midazolam, remimazolam, ketamine, and other substances 111 times to eight people from July 2022 to June 2023, receiving 417 million won. The hospital's administrative director was also booked on charges of aiding A's crimes.
Of the 11 users who received medical narcotics for sedation at the clinic, nine were in their 30s. Some paid up to 13.5 million won in a single day or stayed at the clinic for 13 hours. In one case, a person visited 64 times over 11 months and spent 253 million won.
Police believe such usage patterns were tied to the clinic's business practices. It was revealed that the hospital administered drugs based on the payment amount rather than diagnostic results. The clinic operated even at night or on holidays if users requested. The cosmetic procedures themselves were often omitted or performed only nominally, according to reports.
The doctors were found to have used dexmedetomidine and etomidate, general anesthetics, together with medical narcotics to keep users in a sedated state longer while evading authorities' surveillance. There were also indications that they did not write medical records or report their narcotics handling to conceal the illegal drug administration.
This is the first case in which dexmedetomidine has been caught being abused as a narcotics substitute. This drug is essentially the same substance as medetomidine, an animal anesthetic that has recently been frequently caught as a new drug, prompting calls for its designation as a narcotic. Etomidate was designated as a narcotic starting February 13 this year.
To prevent similar cases from recurring, police have asked the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety to promptly review the designation of dexmedetomidine as a narcotic. They also proposed to relevant ministries the mandatory adoption of a so-called "chaperone system," which restricts medical personnel from treating patients alone during anesthesia and requires a third party such as a nurse to be present.
"There are a growing number of cases where even general anesthetics not designated as narcotics are being abused as means to evade crackdowns," a police official said. "We will strictly investigate illegal handling activities carried out covertly in the medical field and the violent crimes committed using them."
