Defectors no longer able to send money home amid crackdown on Chinese mobile phone use
Security officers at the Chinese border. Image / NK Times
Brokers in North Korea who have for several years now undertaken the risky but lucrative task of delivering money from defectors overseas to their family members still in the country have reportedly been forced to suspend their illegal operations.
Sources say the clandestine brokers went into hiding around the New Year period following an intensive crackdown by the Ministry of State Security on Chinese mobile phone use.
“Brokers in border areas such as Musan County are not moving at all these days,” a local source said, referring to an area in North Hamgyong Province on the Tumen River.
“This is because the Ministry of State Security has strengthened its surveillance of people using Chinese phones to an unprecedented level,” he said.
The crackdown followed the Party’s plenary session in December, he said. “Radio detection vehicles constantly patrol the area, and security agents carrying portable detectors go right up to the doors of targeted homes to see if they are using phones.”
Brokers know from bitter experience that, if caught moving money during crackdown periods, they will be sent straight to political prison camps.
“It seems that the era when people survived through smuggling or remittance work is coming to an end,” the source said. “Even if commissions are 40–50%, it’s not worth risking your life.”
That said, some may be willing to take the risk if the amount is over 10 million won, he speculated. The surveillance is taking a psychological toll on people in the region.
“A lot of people suffer these days from mental distress,” the source said. “Some say that even though they don’t engage in brokering or anything illegal, they flinch in fear at the sound of footsteps or car engines outside their homes.”
The Ministry of State Security is a powerful body that reports directly to supreme leader Kim Jong-un. It has extralegal authority to send people accused of political crimes to prison camps or execute them without judicial process.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, its agents have been deployed in significant numbers to the border region, where they conduct sweeping operations to monitor ideological leanings and seek to eliminate use of Chinese mobile phones.
“Being caught using a Chinese phone is basically a death sentence,” the source said. “It will be impossible for brokers to operate until this crackdown is over.”
Kang is a reporter at NK Times, a Seoul-based media outlet focused on North Korean issues. He was born in 1978 in Chongjin and graduated from Chongjin 1st High School in North Korea. After 10 years of military service in the 4th Army Corps, he attended Chongjin Agricultural University before defecting.
Latest posts by Kang Jae-jun (see all)
- Defectors no longer able to send money home amid crackdown on Chinese mobile phone use - January 9, 2026
- Deserters flee winter training and cause panic in the military - December 14, 2025
- Secret police officer crosses the ‘forbidden line’ with a woman in a defector’s family - November 24, 2025