This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract Living modified (LM) crops are imported each year to South Korea as food and feeds, LM canola being one of the imported crops. The cultivation of LM crops is not permitted in South Korea but the import of these crops is increasing. In this study, we surveyed the environmental risk of imported LM canola at 9 provinces, from March 2009 to June 2013. Monitoring of canola was conducted around feed factories, roadsides, harbors, farmhouses, and flower festival regions. From the total of 595 canola samples collected from 1850 monitoring sites, we identified 6 LM canola samples. The LM canola samples were subjected to protein and DNA based analysis. PCR analyses using approved 5 single event primers (T45, MS8, RT73, Rf3 and Topas 19-2) revealed that two crops were glyphosate-resistant LM canolas, and four were glufosinate-resistant LM canolas. This study suggested that environmental monitoring is a useful research tool to manage LM crops unintentionally introduced into the environment in South Korea. This result can be used as a basis for future post-management of canola crops.