Sixty-four of the 67 North Korean defectors who fled to the South in 2022 received a total of KRW 398 million (USD 296,459) as payment for divulging valuable information about their country of origin. The figures, released by Yonhap news agency on May 14, are based on Ministry of Unification data provided to Kim Sang-Hee, a deputy speaker of South Korea’s National Assembly. The sum is the highest since 2014.
The record number suggests that the increasing number of defectors were former members of the elite of North Korean society, such as politicians and diplomats, who have more insight into DPRK political and military affairs – but also have more opportunities to go abroad.
The lowest amount awarded to a defector was KRW 148 million, and the highest was KRW 3 million, according to Yonhap. These amounts are not offset against the housing and other subsidies that all North Korean defectors receive upon arrival in South Korea.
In 2023, 34 people have so far managed to escape from dictator Kim Jong Un’s repressive regime, 15 of whom received a total of KRW 163 million in payments for their inside information.
Some information would never come to light without the help of defectors
Information that North Korean refugees bring with them from their country is often not verifiable. But if it is accurate, it can provide both South Korean as well as international intelligence services with valuable insights into the isolated country and the regime’s actions.
In 2021, the BBC spoke with Kim Kuk Song, who spent 30 years working in the highest ranks of DPRK spy agencies before defecting to Seoul in 2014. He described a North Korean leadership desperate to make cash by any means, from building illegal drugs labs to selling weapons in the Middle East and Africa, and exposed the regime’s espionage and cyberattacks on South Korea.
One of Kim’s tasks was to develop strategies to “subordinate” South Korea politically, which meant putting eyes and ears on the ground. “I can tell you that North Korean operatives are playing an active role in various civil society organizations as well as important institutions in South Korea,” he said. “There are many cases where I directed spies to go to South Korea and performed operative missions through them.” Like a North Korean agent who allegedly worked in the presidential office in South Korea in the early 1990s before returning home safely.
Lee Chul Eun, also a former North Korean spy, revealed insights about the arrest and mysterious death of Otto Warmbier. The American student had allegedly stolen a propaganda poster while staying at a hotel in Pyongyang in 2016 and was accused of spying on the DPRK on behalf of the CIA.“I had colleagues in that division, that was how I was able to stay up to date with what was happening,” Lee told Asian Boss, claiming that Warmbier’s public confession had been the result of “coercion” and his death an attempt to cover it up. “North Korea is well aware of the repercussions it could face from the international community,” he said. “What if [Warmbier] started saying: ‘I didn’t commit espionage but they beat me and forced me to admit to being a spy?’ It’s likely he was drugged or poisoned. They turned him into a vegetative state in order to silence him.”
Lee based his assumption – and the fact that no toxins could be detected in Warmbier’s body – on his knowledge of the great strides the regime has made in developing biochemical weapons.
Supreme Court of Korea: North Koreans are ROK citizen
A total of 33,916 defectors have crossed the border from the North to the South between 1998 and 2023, according to the Ministry of Unification, equaling an average of 1,357 people per year. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the numbers have dramatically decreased due to the North’s border closures, to an annual average of only 98 refugees.
Virtually all North Korean nationals are, from birth, automatically South Korean citizens according to a 1996 ruling by the South Korean Supreme Court, concluding that “North Korea is part of the Korean peninsula and therefore subject to the sovereignty of the ROK, and therefore that North Korean residency should not interfere with the acquisition of the nationality of the Republic of Korea.” The ruling was later affirmed by the South Korean Constitutional Court.
Upon arrival in South Korea, North Korean defectors are subject to an investigatory review of their background and nationality. If their ROK citizenship is confirmed, they are entitled to resettlement in South Korea and can receive financial, medical, employment, and educational support as well as other welfare benefits.
Edited by Robert Lauler.
