US traveler allowed to fly on after 19 live rounds found in luggage at Incheon airport

Screeners at South Korea's Incheon International Airport found 19 live 9mm rounds and an ammunition magazine in an American transit passenger's luggage, but police let the traveler fly on to Shanghai.

The items turned up at around 6:25 p.m. on Tuesday during security screening in the transfer area of Terminal 2, the Incheon International Airport Police Unit said Thursday, according to Korea JoongAng Daily.

The 40-something U.S. national was flying from Washington to Shanghai via Incheon.

After a joint investigation with military authorities, police found no sign of a terror threat or criminal activity, confiscated the rounds and magazine and closed the case. The passenger continued on to Shanghai the same day, a police official said.

The passenger told police the bag was one normally used for sport shooting and that the rounds left inside had gone unnoticed when it was packed for the trip, The Kyunghyang Shinmun reported.

9mm rounds in an illustration photo. Photo by Unsplash/Jay Rembert

In a similar case on Sept. 15, screeners at the same terminal found a .38-caliber handgun and 16 live rounds in the checked baggage of an American woman flying from Dallas to Hanoi via Incheon, South Korean news agency Newsis reported.

She was unaware that the handgun, which her mother had bought for self-defense, was in the bag, according to the report. Police recovered the gun and ammunition with her consent.

Live ammunition made up 957 of the 1,473 security-threat items detected at Incheon from 2023 to 2025, including 283 in 2025, according to Incheon International Airport Corp. data released in September by Democratic Party lawmaker Moon Jeong-bok.