Officials with the Hoeryong branch of the Ministry of State Security have launched a sweeping crackdown on users of Chinese mobile phones to collect money for year-end bribes for their superiors, Daily NK has learned.
Speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, a source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on Friday that the Hoeryong branch of the Ministry of State Security “recently declared a major cleanup campaign to root out the use of Chinese mobile phones.” He added that local residents “know only too well that this is a shakedown for the officials to fulfill their year-end tasks.”
At the end of each year, North Korean security agents regularly conduct crackdowns to gather the cash to pay their superiors, the source added.
In particular, agents are working hard to ramp up fear to extract bigger bribes, even using the term “major cleanup campaign” to describe their crackdown on Chinese-made mobile phones.
At the top of their target list are remittance “brokers” who make money using Chinese mobile phones.
“Remittance brokers are prime bait for the officials because they’re the only ones with money,” the source said. “The security officials are seeking out remittance brokers to openly ask for money, which puts them in a tight spot because the officials demand too much cash.”
In fact, two security agents recently asked a remittance broker operating in Hoeryong for RMB 20,000 (around USD 2,800).
“I’m starving and exhausted, and now I’ve got to take harassment by security agents just to make a living moving a bit of money,” the broker complained, according to the source. “I have no idea how I will survive.”
Security officials are even seeking out retired remittance brokers to ask for money if their names are on the list of Chinese mobile phone users, the source said.
Security officials use threats to get what they want
In fact, some officials threaten their victims with exile if they refuse to accept their demands.
According to the source, security officials in Hoeryong visited one person last week to demand RMB 5,000 (around USD 705), even though the individual, who had his phone confiscated, has been unable to make money for six months.
“I have no money because I’ve been unable to make remittances,” he told the officials, who responded: “Do you want to be exiled into the mountains so you can come to your senses?”
The source claimed that “security officials demand thousands of yuan without even blinking an eye. It’s highway robbery. Yet we have no choice but to put the money together somehow because we have no idea what detriment we’ll suffer if we don’t give them what they want.”
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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