It was confirmed today that the National Intelligence Service (NIS) recently arrested a female North Korean agent working for the National Security Agency (NSA). The woman had been posing as a defector in an attempt to enter South Korea from Thailand.

The NIS established that 46-year old Lee Kyung Ae was a disguised North Korean agent at the end of last year, and she was charged last month.

Lee was subjected to extended investigation over and above the standard process upon her arrival in the South after failing to provide a viable explanation of her activities prior to arrival in the South and giving incorrect testimony about recent situations in the North. She then confessed to being a North Korean agent, and has been charged with violating South Korea’s strict National Security Law.

The National Intelligence Service is currently working to ascertain her purpose in coming to South Korea. Lee is the third female agent to be arrested in the process of entering the South disguised as a defector, following the cases of Won Jeong Hwa in 2008 and Kim Mi Hwa in 2010.

Lee reportedly became an NSA agent at the beginning of the 2000s, received training and was then dispatched to China to work on the exchanging of $1 million in counterfeit U.S. Dollars for legitimate Chinese Yuan.