Secret police use defectors in China to catch remittance brokers
Two men believed to be with the secret police monitor the border region. [Photo/NK Times]
North Korea’s secret police agency is reportedly using defectors in China to identify and apprehend brokers who arrange payments from escapees to family members still in the North.
A source in North Hamgyong Province told NK Times on April 28 that a broker from Hoeryong City was arrested in Hamhung on April 10 by State Security Department officers while trying to deliver money to the family of a defector.
Another broker from Hoeryong was detained in Pyongyang on April 4 and a broker from Musan County was arrested in Kaechon on April 20. Both were caught delivering money to defectors’ families.
The common thread in these cases is that State Security Department agents were waiting in advance at the homes of the families, clearly tipped off about the brokers’ impending arrival.
It is now being reported that the State Security Department has been recruiting defectors, who live in China and who are involved in cross-border remittance, to help expose the brokers.
The secret police have reportedly been persuading defectors by promising that their families would be taken care of, while subtly pressuring them with threats of harm to their loved ones should they refuse. As a result, there are said to be a significant number of cases where defectors feel compelled to cooperate.
According to reports, these recruits identify fellow defectors planning to send money into North Korea, then pass along the recipients’ addresses and personal details to other brokers, who, in turn, relay them back to the secret police.
Using this information, agents set up surveillance near the homes of defectors’ families and arrest the brokers when they arrive with the cash.
“Brokers who deliver money sent by defectors to their families have long been prime targets,” a cadre-level source in North Hamgyong Province said. “Since February, more than ten people have been arrested by the State Security Department at the North Hamgyong border alone.”
“The State Security Department has been arresting family members who show up to collect remittances sent from abroad, tracing the funds’ origins and using the information to conduct broad sweeps aimed at dismantling domestic remittance networks,” he said. “People are being arrested on-site while unknowingly trying to deliver money.”
“The core of this operation is to ensure that those attempting to send money have no idea how they’re being exposed and caught,” the cadre said, adding a warning, “People over there (South Korea) need to think much more carefully about providing recipient information from China.”
Han was born in 1989 in Taehongdan county, Ryanggang province, North Korea. She graduated from Hyesan Teacher's College in 2012, after which she worked as an elementary school teacher. She defected to South Korea in 2016 and works as a reporter at NK Times in Seoul.
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