153 street stalls near DDP and Dongdaemun targeted for guidance and enforcement
Joint raid on Saevit Market nets 533 counterfeit items worth 650 million won, one booked
Seoul's Jung-gu has launched a special cleanup operation targeting 153 street stalls in the Dongdaemun Tourist Zone.
The district is running a compliance campaign to encourage vendors to voluntarily correct violations — including the sale of counterfeit goods and encroachment onto pedestrian walkways. Repeat violations that persist despite sufficient warnings will be subject to intensive enforcement beginning in November.
The 153 stalls are spread across four clusters in the Dongdaemun Tourist Zone: 62 near APM Place, 41 near Hanyang Technical High School, 39 near Good Morning City, and 11 near the former US Army Corps of Engineers site.
The area is densely packed with large clothing markets and street stalls, drawing heavy tourist foot traffic and freight movement. Late-night logistics surges have led to goods being stacked on roads, while stall awnings frequently exceed their permitted footprints, blocking pedestrian paths and encroaching on tactile paving blocks and crosswalk approaches. Particularly at the Saevit Market in front of APM Place and Hanyang Technical High School, so-called "yellow tents" operate from 8 p.m. until 3 a.m. the following morning, selling counterfeit clothing, bags and shoes.
In response, Jung-gu began on-site guidance in late August to help vendors correct violations on their own. District officials visited stalls to advise them on clearing goods stacked on roads, prohibiting counterfeit sales, displaying road-use permits, observing permitted areas and operating hours, and keeping pedestrian space clear around tactile paving blocks and crosswalks.
From Sept. 15 to Sept. 30, a joint investigative body — comprising Jung-gu, the Intellectual Property Office, the Seoul Metropolitan Government's Public Safety Judicial Police Unit, and the Korea Intellectual Property Protection Agency — conducted late-night unannounced raids on the Dongdaemun Saevit Market. As a result, officials seized 533 counterfeit items — including clothing, bags and shoes — with an estimated retail value of about 650 million won ($470,000) from 10 yellow-tent stalls, and booked one vendor without detention on charges of trademark law violations.
The district will continue its on-site campaign and guidance through October, keeping the focus on voluntary compliance. Intensive enforcement of violations will begin in November after sufficient warnings have been given. At Saevit Market in particular, officials have found cases of vendors removing their road-use permits or erecting unlicensed tents to evade counterfeit crackdowns; tents that fail to display a valid permit will be treated as unauthorized road occupancy and cleared accordingly.
Jung-gu District Mayor Kim Gil-sung said Dongdaemun is a place where domestic and international tourists, merchants and freight move well into the night, making it essential to build both a comfortable pedestrian environment and an orderly business environment together. "We will keep communicating consistently with vendors to encourage self-regulation, and manage repeat violations by the book so that anyone can visit the street comfortably," he said.
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