(123rf) A growing share of suspects in South Korea are using virtual assets to buy and sell drugs, police data showed Thursday, adding to concerns that online tools are making transactions harder to trace.Virtual assets were used by 9.2 percent of suspects in drug crimes reported from January to April this year, up from 8.4 percent in 2025, according to National Police Agency data submitted to Rep. Park Soo-min of the main opposition People Power Party.Police tallied the share of drug suspects who used either virtual assets or the dark web from 2021 to 2024, before switching to a separate tally for virtual assets in 2025.The dark web refers to hidden parts of the internet accessible through special software and is often used for illicit transactions.The combined share of drug suspects who used virtual assets or the dark web stood at 7.8 percent in 2021, 8.9 percent in 2022, 6 percent in 2023 and 7.1 percent in 2024.The number of drug suspects believed to have bought or sold them online rose from 2,545 in 2021 to 5,341 in 2025, increasing almost every year during the period. As a share of all drug suspects, this represented an increase from 24 percent in 2021 to 40 percent last year.For January to April this year, the figure was 42 percent.The total number of drug suspects investigated by police stood at 10,626 in 2021 and rose to 17,817 in 2023, before falling to 13,512 in 2024 and 13,353 in 2025.Virtual assets, also known as crypto assets, refer to digital representations of value that can be traded, transferred or used for payment.While cryptocurrency was once used mostly for investment, its use has expanded in recent years. Experts say in increasing number of transactions involve privacy coins, a type of cryptocurrency designed to obscure transaction histories.South Korea has also seen a rise in "proxy revenge" crimes, in which people are hired to commit crimes on behalf of someone with a personal grudge against a victim. In many such cases, perpetrators are paid in cryptocurrency, pointing to the broader use of virtual assets in both legal and illegal transactions.