Individuals who apply for the mandatory certificates which allow them to enter the region on the North Korean side of the
country’s border with China could find themselves being tracked to their destination by the security services, it has emerged. According to Daily NK sources in the region, such surveillance has already resulted in cases of extortion, or simple confiscation, of remitted monies arriving from abroad.
“Recently, a woman in
her 40s came here to Hyesan from Onsung County [in North Hamkyung Province] to collect money remitted by her
family in the South,” a source from Yangkang Province explained. “She didn’t
know that she was being tracked by an agent from the Onsung branch of the
Department of State Security (SSD), but he caught her red-handed with the
money and took it all.”
“She was told to turn up to
the SSD for later questioning, but was not arrested and didn’t go. The agent just left for Onsung,” he went on. “Although Article 60 of the criminal code was amended earlier this
year and it now stipulates strict punishment for ‘all financial transactions with
South Chosun’, it looks like nothing is going to happen as they took all of her money.”
Many defectors in
South Korea who have close family remaining in the North remit money through
broker networks spanning South Korea and China. The process is expensive. Each individual
broker asks for a minimum of 10% commission, and since a single transaction
often involves three such brokers, commission alone adds up to 30% of the
remitted monies, although the overall cost regularly exceeds even this.
