By Isabel Ong
South Korea detained six Americans trying to send rice and Bibles by sea to North Korea.
When Eric Foley heard that police had detained six Americans in late June for doing a “rice-bottle launch” in South Korea, he felt a dull wave of dread pass through his body.
The group had attempted to throw 1,600 plastic bottles filled with Bibles, rice, $1 bills, and USB sticks in the sea off the shore of Ganghwa Island, which lies close to the southern part of North Korea, in hopes that they would float toward the North. Police investigated the Americans for allegedly violating a law on the management of safety and disasters.
Foley immediately recalled June 2020, when South Korean police charged him and his organization, Voice of the Martyrs Korea (VOMK), for using balloons to send Bibles to North Korea. After an investigation, police ultimately decided not to pursue the charges against him.