Operators in border regions carry sweets and underwear to mask their use of Chinese mobile phones for money transfers, as state security intensifies surveillance of defector families and illicit communication with the outside world.
According to a Daily NK source in North Hamgyong province recently, state security officers in Hoeryong have recently launched an all-out effort to ferret out users of Chinese-made mobile phones. In response, remittance brokers who have long used Chinese-made mobile phones to conduct transactions with the outside world are employing various methods to avoid crackdowns, including disguising themselves as traveling salespersons.
The North Korean authorities believe users of Chinese-made mobile phones may leak internal information or introduce outside information into North Korea while communicating with the outside world, which they regard as a major threat to the regime. Accordingly, they have persistently cracked down on the phones and their users.
However, in the country’s border regions, people still make money by facilitating remittances or smuggling using illicit Chinese-made mobile phones.
However, users have come up with several ways to continue their livelihoods while avoiding crackdowns, given the high risk of getting caught and the severity of the punishments that follow, including stints in reeducation or political prison camps and potentially execution as a spy.
Merchants face less suspicion than strangers in villages
Remittance brokers have recently begun disguising themselves as traveling salespersons, approaching the families of North Korean defectors under the radar.
“Remittance brokers’ best customers are North Korean defectors, but they are so closely watched that as soon as a stranger who appears to be a remittance broker shows up where they live, state security officers get tipped off,” the source said. “However, because traveling salespersons generally avoid getting reported, remittance brokers are using this point.”
The same phenomenon can also be seen in the border regions of Ryanggang province.
“In downtown Hyesan, even if orders to intensify surveillance are issued, people often find them annoying or simply go through the motions, so remittance brokers can operate if they’re careful, but outside of town, the atmosphere is completely different — if a stranger shows up, they’re reported immediately to state security officers,” a source in Ryanggang province said. “So if you don’t disguise yourself as a merchant, you can’t work.”
Some remittance brokers go around villages with sweets, underwear and other items villagers need to sell or barter. Essentially, this is a trick to alleviate villagers’ suspicion by convincing them that they are merely a traveling salesperson.
“Remittance brokers who had to suspend their activities for a while as crackdowns intensified are working again using new methods,” the source said. “Sooner or later, state security officers will wisen up to this technique, too. But if you sit on your hands out of fear of this, you’ll just eat through your savings, so brokers are trying to make money somehow, even if they have to endure the risk.”
