Police have opened an investigation after a series of plastic bottles containing rice and U.S. dollar bills were found on a tidal flat in Incheon. Investigators are also looking into whether someone intended to send them north.
According to Incheon Yeongjong Police Station on the 28th, an angler reported to police and the coast guard at around 11 p.m. the previous day that a number of plastic bottles had been found on a tidal flat near Muui Bridge in Muui-dong, Yeongjong district.
Coast guard officers who responded collected more than 10 1.5-liter plastic bottles from the tidal flat. All of them held rice, and one or two also contained a $1 bill.
It is not the first such case in the border areas of northern Incheon. In June last year, six Americans were arrested by police while attempting to send more than 1,300 plastic bottles containing rice, $1 bills and Bibles across the border for missionary purposes.
Police are focusing the investigation on identifying who released the bottles and from where, including whether they were meant to be sent north. "The location where the bottles were released has not yet been identified," a police official said. "We plan to proceed with the investigation keeping multiple possibilities open."
