The North Korean authorities have recently established a new bureau to crack down on the flow of information across the Sino-North Korean border.
“The Ministry of State Security’s (MSS) Bureau 12 [tasked with monitoring mobile phone communications] changed its name to Bureau 15 [which operates as the mobile phone anti-espionage bureau]. The role of this bureau[in cracking down on mobile device communications] has also been increased. Bureau 15 officials have been deployed to cities on the Sino-North Korean border, and will be using a two-story building located in Hyesan District,” a Ryanggang Province-based source told Daily NK on December 6.
“Bureau 15 has the same level of authority as each provincial MSS office and receives orders directly from MSS central headquarters. The organization’s officers hold a lot of authority so even provincial and municipal level MSS officials avoid getting in their way.”
The change in name and growing role of Bureau 15 suggests that the authorities are paying a lot of attention to the flow of information in and out of the country through its border with China.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently ordered a surveillance team to be deployed to the border region to investigate cases of defections and river-crossings. The order shows that the regime is aware of internal information flowing to and from China as North Koreans engage in cross-border activities, and is closely related to the regime’s ongoing efforts to block illegal mobile communications.
North Korea has also placed a large number of wireless communications experts in Bureau 15, signalling that the regime has completed providing assignments to those experts in the field.
“Members of Bureau 15 include graduates from Mirim University (Kim Il Automation University), Kim Chaek University of Technology, Huichon Communications University, and universities with natural science departments,” said the source. “They are all engineering experts specializing in electronic devices, computer [science] and the like.”
“Bureau 15 is divided into internal staff and on-site monitors,” said the source. “Internal staff include managers of electronic surveillance devices and the collection of information, while on-site monitors typically work in teams of three and patrol or conduct surveillance activities in the border region.”
Bureau 15 officials are also tasked with preventing internal information from leaking out of the country – essentially, they are the vanguard of efforts to block information from escaping North Korea.
“Bureau 15 is also tasked with maintaining a ‘firewall’ to prevent Chinese mobile phone signals from entering the country,” a source in North Hamgyong Province reported.
“The MSS procured the latest electronic surveillance technology for Bureau 15, which is now strongly cracking down on illegal international calls being made in the border region around the Tumen River.”
North Korea has been conducting surveillance on smugglers using new and improved mobile phone wiretapping devices and has created discontent among locals by wiretapping traders who have government permission for their business activities.
Daily NK reported previously that North Korea had imported German-made wiretapping and monitoring equipment and installed the equipment in the border region.
Crackdowns on wireless communications in the border region continue and the cost of bribes to escape them has reportedly skyrocketed.
“It’s difficult to wiggle out of being caught in a Bureau 15 crackdown on the use of illegal phones [Chinese cell phones],” the North Hamgyong Province said.
“People pay bribes of 2,000 to 3,000 yuan (320,000 to 490,000 South Korean won), and if the caller on the other end is a South Korean, then they have to pay upwards of 10,000 yuan (1.6 million won) to get out of trouble.”
North Korean party and security officials have long relied on bribes to survive, and Bureau 15 officials also appear to be accepting massive bribes.
“The MSS has provided Bureau 15 officials with relatively good pay and benefits to lower their interest in bribes, but it has been unable to stop them from accepting bribes altogether. Bureau 15 officials are living well because they are earning good money officially and unofficially,” a separate source in Ryanggang Province noted.
“There are a lot of MSS officials who want to join Bureau 15. Some have even sent thousands of US dollars to the bureau’s human resources team [for a chance to join the bureau].”
