A couple from Samsu County, Yanggang Province, was arrested last year by North Korea’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) for using foreign mobile phones and has been branded “political criminals.”
“A couple living in Samsu County, a 45-year-old and a 38-year-old, had long been using foreign mobile phones illegally,” a source in Yanggang Province told Daily NK on Feb. 21. “They were caught through the MSS surveillance network and stood trial on Feb. 9.”
According to the source, the trial was conducted at the Samsu County Cultural Center, and presided over by MSS officials and members from the “non-socialist and anti-socialist unified command.” Once the verdict was delivered, the MSS determined the couple’s punishment.
During the trial, the MSS revealed that the couple typically used foreign mobile phones at the wife’s family home in Pochon County. In September of last year, the wife made a call while on her family’s farm plot when the signal was caught by an MSS radio locator, and the family’s “espionage activities” came to light during their arrest, the MSS claimed.
More specifically, the MSS explained that the provincial Military Security Command conducted a thorough search of the couple’s house in Samsu County and the wife’s old family home in Pochon. During the search, five Chinese mobile phones were discovered and retrieved from the old family home, where they were hidden deep inside an underground potato storage area.
The MSS mentioned that upon restoration and analysis of the deleted data from the phones, there was no doubt that the couple had been sending information about North Korea’s internal affairs, rumors floating amongst North Korean residents, and even pictures of various North Korean documents.
The MSS instilled a sense of fear among locals by warning them that it can restore records from decades ago, and that simply deleting the content of mobile phones, computers, or other devices does not permanently erase the content.
“The ruling stated that the couple was involved in the second biggest espionage case to occur in Samsu County in the last ten years or so. The MSS labelled the couple as political criminals, branding them ‘insignificant’ spies who sympathized with the enemy’s anti-Republic schemes to destroy the country,” the source added.
As a result, the couple and even their twelve-year-old son will be taken to a political prisoner camp, according to the source.
The MSS further stated that it would banish six other families related to the couple to a remote mountain area in Paekam County because they had received the couple’s “dirty money” to support their living.
The source claimed that residents of Samsu County who watched the trial could not believe that such a serious case had actually occurred because the MSS frequently fabricates “espionage cases” to instill fear among the people.
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