Incheon Airport.
Immigration Office.
Immigration officer Choi Eunchae was working on a report.
What that meant was,
quite literally, the work of filtering out people who were traveling in an abnormal manner.
Travelers had things in common.
Namely, that their purpose was clear.
“I’m going to Japan for a trip. It’s two nights, three days. I booked Hotel A.”
“I’m going to the United States to study abroad. Here is my visa. I’ll be attending School A. Here’s my letter of admission.”
“It’s a business trip. I’ll probably be visiting our branch offices around Southeast Asia.”
“I’m going to visit relatives who live in Europe. I’ll probably stay for about two months once I get there.”
More than 90% of travelers fell into that pattern.
Even if they did not fit that pattern, most travelers could explain the purpose of their trip.
But with some travelers, that pattern could not be seen.
Their purpose was vague and their route was suspicious.
They had no job, or an unclear one, yet traveled in and out of the country several times a month.
They repeatedly visited multiple countries in a short period of time.
They did not book hotels, and traveled only on one-way tickets.
At the airport, people like this.
They created a list of people who traveled in abnormal patterns and tracked and observed them.
Why were these people a problem?
Why did they manage them separately?
It was because such people were very likely to be connected to terrorism, smuggling, illegal immigration, money laundering, and the like.
In particular, they tended to watch more carefully those who had repeatedly entered and left countries in South America or Southeast Asia.
There was more crime in those regions, and drug smuggling was common.
Honestly, there was no need to intervene by hand.
The program caught everything in advance.
Then Choi Eunchae would run these people through the program one more time separately.
It would compare that person’s boarding records, transit points, baggage, payment methods, and so on,
with past smuggling methods to create a risk index.
And this man’s risk index was very high.
“Team leader, I think you need to take a look at this.”
“Why?”
“Twenty-five years old. An unemployed man has recently been to the Philippines, Macau, and Hong Kong four times.”
“Baggage?”
“That’s the thing… he has no baggage.”
“You mean he came empty-handed?”
“That’s right.”
“He went empty-handed and came back empty-handed… Couldn’t it be one of those cases? The kind where someone goes once, gets completely hooked on the nightlife over there, and keeps going back.”
“It’s possible, but I can’t say for sure.”
“How could we say for sure? Put Code S on him.”
“Yes. Understood.”
Code S, or Code SSSS.
Secondary Security Screening Selection.
It referred to a person who required additional security screening.
Once Code SSSS was attached, the person would be inspected far more thoroughly than an ordinary passenger.
Not only a full-body scanner, but also a body pat-down (a security check performed directly by hand by a security officer).
Carry-on items, laptops, and electronic devices would all be examined in detail.
All baggage would be inspected.
They would be asked more questions about their travel.
********
I was going through departure screening, and the immigration officer’s expression was not normal.
I had been coming and going often over the past few months.
Rafei and Kevin, the Philippine drug supplier, had been calling me over at all hours.
Maybe the last delivery had worked well,
because they wanted me to keep making deliveries.
I was bored staying at home anyway, so I had gone as a sort of trip.
That had already been three times.
Was that why?
The immigration officer’s face was full of suspicion as he looked at me.
“What is the purpose of your visit to the Philippines?”
“I’m going on a trip.”
The question was unexpected.
I had departed through Incheon Airport several times, but this was the first time I had ever been asked a question.
Usually, you just handed over your passport, they checked your passport and your face, and then handed the passport back.
But now, a question.
“How long do you plan to stay?”
“Probably about a week to ten days?”
“You haven’t booked a return ticket?”
“No. I was going to book that depending on the situation.”
“Have you booked a hotel?”
“I haven’t done that either. I was going to do it locally.”
The immigration officer looked back and forth between my face and my passport, then said,
“Sir, I think we need to speak with you separately. Please come with us.”
Airport security stood behind me, and I had no choice but to follow them to a small interrogation room.
.
.
.
After I sat there for a while, a man who looked to be in his forties and a woman in her thirties came in.
“Hello. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
“It’s fine. If there’s something to investigate, I should be investigated.”
“We found something unusual in your recent immigration records.”
“Hmm… I have been to the Philippines several times recently. Would that be a problem?”
“It isn’t just the Philippines. You also stopped by Hong Kong and Macau. On our end, this came up as an abnormal travel route.”
“Really? I just stopped by since I was already there.”
“Sir. You should answer carefully. If you make a mistake, you could be designated a dangerous person and be banned from leaving the country.”
“....”
“To briefly summarize how we see you right now: you have visited the Philippines four times recently without any particular purpose. Each time you visited, you went through Macau and Hong Kong. In a case like this, we have no choice but to verify the source of your funds.”
The situation seemed more serious than I had thought.
A travel ban.
I had thought a day like this would come,
but it had come much earlier than expected.
I had thought it was not yet time to use my newly made ID.
Apparently, I should have used it.
Only four times. I had only gone back and forth to the Philippines four times, and they were already investigating me.
Incheon Airport was good at its job.
They said it was one of the best airports in the world, and it seemed they were right.
I thought quickly.
At the very least, they had no evidence whatsoever to prove my smuggling.
They were simply investigating because my route was somewhat abnormal.
As if embarrassed, I opened my mouth.
“Um, excuse me, but could I talk with just the men?”
I asked the man in his forties carefully,
and the man in his forties glanced at the woman.
The woman met the man’s eyes,
then gathered up the laptop she had brought and went back out.
“Now then, as you wanted, I’ve sent the female officer out as well. Please speak comfortably.”
“It’s a little embarrassing to talk about, but when I went on my last trip, I met a woman in the Philippines. I don’t know how much you know, but I was working at a company until two months ago. After working for so long without rest, I got a bit worn out. So I decided to take a trip to commemorate my resignation. That was the Philippines.”
“Usually, wouldn’t you go on a package tour in that case, or buy a round-trip ticket?”
“At first, I was going to do that too, but package tours were more expensive than I expected, and there was a lot of talk about forced tours, mandatory shopping, things like that. Since I was unemployed anyway, I wanted to travel more slowly and leisurely. It was cheaper that way too. So I bought a one-way ticket. I thought that, if it came to it, I might stop by another country from there before coming back.”
“Then why did you stop by Hong Kong and Macau?”
“I was eating in the Philippines when a woman started talking to me. Her name was Marian. She said she would be my guide. I said okay right away. She was really pretty. Do you want to see a picture?”
“That’s all right.”
Despite the investigator’s attempt to stop me, I took out my smartphone and showed him a photo I had taken with Marian.
Even looking at it again, Marian’s beauty was outstanding.
It was the kind of beauty that could make the investigator understand in an instant.
“I traveled around the Philippines with Marian. Like lovers. She said it was 300 dollars a day. We went sightseeing during the day, and in the evening we were eating and having a drink, and Marian said this. That if she just had 100 million won, she could live respectably. So I asked her. What’s the fastest way to get 100 million won? She said it was to win it at a casino. So I laughed at her, but Marian didn’t laugh. She said she had her own know-how. That she absolutely wouldn’t lose. So, drunk, I said, fine, then let’s go. And the next day we went to Macau. What do you think happened? I got cleaned out. Seriously. Completely cleaned out. I was the idiot for believing her. I spent about one million won. I didn’t even have ten thousand won left. It was funny. So we laughed for a long time in front of the casino. Since we had come all the way there, we said we might as well see Hong Kong, so we took the ferry, went to Hong Kong, looked around, came back to the Philippines, dropped Marian off, and then I returned to Korea.”
The investigator seemed to understand what I was saying.
“I understand. But after that, the pattern was the same every time, wasn’t it? How will you explain that?”
“When I came back to Korea, I kept thinking about Marian. So I went again.”
“That does not explain going to Hong Kong and Macau.”
“This will be kept confidential, right? Marian doesn’t know this, but there was a woman I knew in Hong Kong. She was someone I knew in Korea, but she was working in Hong Kong. So I went. Because I wanted to see her.”
“You could have gone directly from Korea to Hong Kong.”
“To be honest, it wasn’t to that extent. I thought of Marian in the Philippines, thought of the casino in Macau, thought of her in Hong Kong… that sort of thing. But now she says she has a boyfriend and told me not to come.”
“Do you intend to keep going in the future?”
“I don’t need to go to Hong Kong or Macau anymore. The Hong Kong woman told me not to come because she got a boyfriend, and I found out I can’t win money at casinos. But I think I’ll have to keep going to the Philippines for a while. Marian and I went to every tourist spot in Bohol, Philippines, and even to all the places locals go, and among the places that aren’t well known, there are so many good ones. So I’m thinking of opening up those routes and creating travel products. Even now, I have to plan the routes with Marian, arrange vehicles, negotiate with hotels, and talk to local restaurants, so I think I’ll have to keep going to the Philippines for the time being.”
“Do you have a travel agency business registration certificate?”
“You’ve never tried making a tourism business registration certificate, have you? This isn’t an application, it’s a permit. It’s complicated. First of all, you need money. Maybe it’s because they’re afraid you’ll recruit customers, take their money, and run. The capital requirement also differs depending on whether it’s domestic or overseas, and since foreigners can participate in ours too, we’ll be targeting both Koreans and foreigners, so we have to register as a general travel business. Then, to start with, you need 50 million won in capital. And you need a business plan and a projected profit-and-loss statement for three years. They’re asking you to predict and write down how you’ll run the business, recruit customers, and make money in the future. Of course, you need an office too. Can I use my home as the address? No. I have to have a separate office. Once I make that, money will keep going out starting with office rent, so first I need to find decent routes in the Philippines, contact the businesses there, and then write the permit application. That’s usually the proper order.”
“I understand. Is there anything else you would like to say?”
“First of all, I’d like to apologize. I never thought my excessive curiosity would cause a problem like this. I’m sorry. From now on, I’ll only go back and forth to the Philippines occasionally for work. I’m sorry.”
“No. We are only trying to confirm the facts for airport security. We have no other intention.”
“But my flight time is almost here. May I go?”
“Yes. You may go.”
Fortunately, the man seemed to understand what I was saying.
Judging by the fact that he let me go without resistance.
First of all, more than anything, I was young,
and he seemed well aware that at a young age, a man could fall for a woman once in a while.
Marian’s photo had probably played a big role.
I think the fact that I kept talking nonstop, as if chattering away, helped too.
I kept talking about things the investigator had not even asked.
There was a reason I mentioned things I could have let slide, even trivial things.
I have nothing to hide.
I gave the investigator the signal that I was telling him everything.
A signal that I would cooperate with the investigation at any time.
And most of it was the truth.
I did not mention delivering drugs.
And the woman in Hong Kong was an imaginary person,
but in the end, almost all of it was true.
Fortunately, it seemed to have worked well.
I left the interrogation room like that and headed toward the gate.
.
.
.
“What do you think?”
“It’s not one hundred percent, but most of it seems true.”
The team leader asked Choi Eunchae.
Choi Eunchae, who had been watching Gong Inbae from the observation room behind the interrogation room, answered.
“What seems false?”
“I’m not sure about that. But it doesn’t seem to be connected to crime.”
“Right?”
“And most importantly, he has no baggage, does he? He’s leaving empty-handed even now, isn’t he? It seems like it really is a woman problem after all.”
“Lucky bastard. I’m jealous. Jealous.”
“Then what should we do about Code SSSS?”
“Clear it. He says he’s going in search of love. How can we put a code on him?”
“Yes. Understood.”
“Just keep him on the list and check on him occasionally.”
“Yes.”