Corruption continues to run rampant in North Korea as authorities demand payments using diverse and ever-growing pretexts. Although the government officially rejects the anti-socialist personal accumulation of wealth, elite cadres are no stranger to elaborate taxation schemes.
“No matter how much they rail against the accumulation of wealth, the authorities continue to extort bribes from the people. No one is better at forcing people to pay bribes than the top brass of the Pyongyang cadres,” a source from Pyongyang who traveled to the North Korea-Sino border told Daily NK on November 13.
“Police and army units in Pyongyang are stopping cars on the streets and demanding bribes in cash or commodities. Delivery trucks carrying goods for trade are expected to prepare a bundle of cash to pay off the guards. After pulling someone over, police will demand $30-40 dollars ‘for lunch money.'”
Demanding bribes even from the privileged class first began under the pretext of loyalty payments. Ordinary and elite citizens alike could not escape demands for bribes to pay for Kim Jong Un’s Ryomyong Street project, for example. When elites are required to pay such bribes, they turn to the lower ranks and ordinary citizens to procure the money.
The source compared the bribery scheme to a tax system in its level of organization, saying that “army units in Pyongyang have meticulously planned bribe demands for vehicles in accordance with instructions handed down by the higher authorities. Public sentiment towards the regime continues to drop as their tyranny intensifies. Though they may occasionally punish cadres on corruption charges, there is no official effort to end it (the practice of bribing).”
The regime has been increasingly unable to earn foreign currency as a result of international sanctions.
“These days, even the police are required to pay around a $70 dollar loyalty bribe. Higher authorities, sometimes even the ones directly above a person, will demand money to make up for their own shortfalls, and it all gets passed down to ordinary citizens in the end,” a source in South Pyongan Province explained.
She said that cadres at every level look to others under their authority to collect the required amount for their loyalty bribes. Instituted as a means of determining loyalty to the regime, the system survives on the fear of falling short of the higher authority’s demands.
“’If you can’t use the law to extract money, then you don’t have what it takes to do the job’ is a frequent phrase high-ranking cadres use on lower-ranking officers. As a result, wealthy cadres are suddenly appearing everywhere in Pyongyang – all through this system of what is essentially robbery by another name,” she added.
If merchants wish to sell anti-socialist items like drugs or foreign media, they must bribe the authorities. The system is reaching new levels of formality, with set bribe amounts attached to specific items, reaching hundreds or even thousands of dollars depending on the business. While the regime has publicly stated that it wishes to eradicate corruption, the situation is only getting worse.
