Six Americans were arrested by South Korean police on the 27th for attempting to send about 1,300 plastic bottles filled with rice, US dollar bills, and Bibles to North Korea.
The police stated that the six individuals were apprehended at 1:03 a.m. while they were trying to throw thousands of plastic bottles filled with rice, one-dollar bills, and Bibles into the sea off Ganghwa Island.
Investigators from Incheon Ganghwa Police Station told AFP: "We have arrested and are interrogating six US citizens aged between 20 and 50, who are suspected of violating the Basic Law on Disaster and Safety Management."
Ganghwa Island is located northwest of Seoul and is one of the closest South Korean territories to North Korea, with some parts of its surrounding waters just 10 kilometers from the inter-Korean maritime border.
For a long time, Ganghwa Island has been a popular site for NGOs and anti-North Korean groups to send bottles containing rice and USB drives, with the USBs loaded with K-pop music and Korean dramas.
Tensions between the two Koreas had previously escalated sharply, but after President Lee Jae-myung took office in June this year, he vowed to improve relations with North Korea.