Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Korean in November 2021.
In early November 2012, North Korea’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) made it a top priority to completely stop illegal border crossings and defections during the reign of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. In response, the counterintelligence departments of the ministry’s local branches along the North Korea-China border made it their foremost goal to reduce the number of defectors to “zero” by using all means and methods.
The MSS ordered its branches along the border to set up a system to control defectors in China and even in South Korea by finding ways to infiltrate new spies among them. The ministry’s provincial branch in Yanggang Province responded by ordering the counterintelligence teams of its city and county branches to recruit spies who could control and report on defectors.
Officials at the Yanggang Province branch of the MSS, who had to regularly report the results of its spy infiltration efforts during its quarterly and annual reviews, felt tremendous pressure due to the order. Training new spies and sending them to China was difficult, as was approaching and turning defectors already in China.
The Yanggang Province branch of the MSS took advantage of the fact that 90% of defectors living in China were women. It recruited female spies, believing that women – who only had to marry Chinese or Chinese-Korean men to settle down – would have an easier time assimilating into Chinese society.
But it could not train ordinary women who had no plans to go to China as spies and send them off to marry random Chinese men. That is because it would bring national shame for the state security agency to openly sell North Korean women to China through human traffickers.
As a result, officials examined the identities of repatriated defectors detained in holding pens, waiting rooms, and collection points. They then drew up a list of about 20 women who came from family environments or backgrounds that indicated potential loyalty to the state and the party, or who had spy potential with just a little training.
The women on the list were immediately released from detention after being designated as “special management subjects” of the ministry. They then underwent a year of one-on-one tutoring and training in various areas of the province. The Yanggang Province branch of the MSS ordered that the women be “prepared as active spies to go in and out of China, the No. 1 foxhole in the hidden front line of the class war.”
The women underwent training on interviewing methods to determine a person’s tendencies and ideology, ways to communicate with superiors, and surveillance, management, and reporting systems for attempts by defectors in China to reach South Korea. They also underwent Chinese language training at various locations and took an exam to complete their training.
One spy assists in the kidnapping of 40 people in six months
The star student, Kim Hye Song (pseudonym), was assigned to spy for the ministry and voluntarily went undercover through human traffickers to the home of a Chinese man in Changbai. She worked as an agent in China for eight years, observing and reporting on defectors in China.
Working directly with the ministry, she helped lure and kidnap 40 defectors in just six months in 2019. Considered the country’s top spy, she received a third-class medal and a commendation from the provincial branch of the MSS.
Posing as an ordinary defector, she made connections with other North Korean defectors she knew in person or through the WeChat messaging app and reported the personal details and movements of defectors in the region to the provincial branch of the MSS. She also tipped off defectors who tried to go to South Korea or were in constant contact with people in South Korea and helped the ministry kidnap them when ordered.
When she completed her mission in one area, she would disappear from the village and move to another area, where she would continue spying while living with another Chinese man. In this way, Kim operated throughout the provinces of Jilin, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, and Inner Mongolia. However, she generally chose to live in places with relatively large numbers of female defectors.
After moving five times in eight years, and living with different Chinese men in each place, she finally settled down in one area. She ratted out defectors to the ministry by approaching them online through apps such as QQ and TikTok with lines like, “I can’t live like this without [Chinese] citizenship” and “I’d like to go to South Korea. Introduce me to a way or people who can help if you know them.”
A tragic end
After sacrificing her youth and life to help authorities arrest defectors, Kim returned to the North under the guise of voluntary repatriation after being recalled due to deteriorating health. What happened to this woman, the country’s top spy, after she went back to the DPRK?
Upon her return, she was treated in a secret location affiliated with the provincial branch of the MSS. Then, later in the year, the ministry sent her to psychiatric hospitals deep in the mountains of Yangdok and Maengsan after judging her mentally ill. Officials ended up completely isolating her from society because she knew too much about the ministry’s secret activities. She was sent to mental hospitals because officials knew they could not send someone with her record to a political prison.
Locked away in psychiatric hospitals, she cried out, “Return me to society! “Let me live with my family!” and “I have done so much for you and the nation!”
Security officials who knew about her background simply said they “felt sorry for such an intelligent girl.” On the other hand, the relatives of repatriated defectors who were locked up in political prison camps after she blew the whistle on them said that her “roosters had come home to roost” and she “got what she deserved.”
The MSS set a goal of zero defections early in Kim Jong Un’s reign, but more than 10 years later it still hasn’t achieved that goal. The ministry tried to stop defections altogether, turning spies like Kim into sacrificial lambs after stealing their youth and ultimately their lives. However, people like Kim, who showed complete loyalty to their fatherland as spies, could not solve the defection problem and the authorities were unable to stop the procession of people trying to flee the country.
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
Daily NK works with a network of sources who live in North Korea, China, and elsewhere. Their identities remain anonymous due to security concerns. More information about Daily NK’s reporting partner network and information-gathering activities can be found on our FAQ page here.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
