According to a Daily NK source in Yanggang Province on Thursday, the Ministry of State Security has been conducting an inspection of “security-related activities by security agencies in Yanggang Province” since mid-October.
The inspection is focusing on the departments and divisions of the ministry’s provincial branch, as well as on the local branches of major cities and counties along the China-North Korea border, such as Hyesan and Samjiyon.
In particular, the Ministry of State Security is looking for corruption and collusion in the provincial branch’s counterespionage division and among security agents responsible for major border regions.
Specifically, the inspection is focusing on whether provincial agents overlooked the misdeeds of members of the country’s wealthy entrepeneurial class, or donju, who committed grave offenses, received bribes by people who use Chinese-made mobile phones, or even leaked internal ministry documents or other secret materials to the outside world.
The Ministry of State Security believes domestic news is leaking abroad through residents of border regions, North Korean workers overseas or North Koreans studying abroad.
In fact, the ministry believes that the people leaking the most news overseas are the family members of North Korean defectors who remain in North Korea, and remittance “brokers” who transfer money from defectors to their families.
Given how most of these leaks are happening in border regions, the Ministry of State Security is ramping up inspections of the activities of security agencies responsible for those areas, the source said.
Through the inspection, the Ministry of State Security aims to restore discipline to local security bodies along the border.
It is also calling once again on local security agencies to carefully watch what local residents do at all times and ferret out miscreants.
DEFECTORS CONTACT FAMILY MEMBERS LESS THAN BEFORE
A defector who entered South Korea in 2018 told Daily NK that since the start of COVID-19, defectors have been contacting their families back in North Korea less than before.
“Some defectors have been unable to talk with their families for years,” he said.
Another defector said he gave up trying to contact his family after the start of COVID-19.
“Because they could suffer an even greater mishap if they are caught by the Ministry of State Security, it helps my family not to contact them until the situation along the border loosens up,” he told Daily NK.
In fact, the Ministry of State Security is using the recently launched inspection to gauge the performance of local officials, including their records of arresting and punishing people who leaked internal information. The ministry aims to scrutinize whether local officials committed acts of corruption in the course of arresting and punishing these people.
The source said the Ministry of State Security carries out inspections of local branches along the border every year, but this year’s inspection is 1.5 times larger than the one conducted last year.
“And because the inspectors coming down from Pyongyang are untainted young people in their 30s and 40s, even cadres [in the border region] are sweating bullets,” he said.
The source further noted that the Ministry of State Security’s inspection efforts in Yanggang Province will continue until the end of the year.
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