The regime sells weapons and drugs: a fugitive from North Korea told shocking facts about the country - ForumDaily
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The regime sells weapons and drugs: a fugitive from North Korea told shocking facts about the country

Defector from North Korea told that the regime lives on terror, drugs and weapons, reports with the BBC.

Photo: Shutterstock

The habit of secrecy is deep in Kim Kuk Sung's blood. It took several weeks to arrange an interview with North Korea's highest-ranking defector. The former colonel immediately asked who had come to interview him and never took off his glasses in front of the TV camera. Only two people on the team knew his real name.

Kim Kuk-song has spent the last 30 years living in deep secrecy, working for North Korean intelligence—“the eyes, ears and brains of the Supreme Leader,” as he calls it.

He says he guarded the regime's secrets, sent assassins to kill its critics, and set up a drug lab to raise money "for the cause of the revolution."

And so the former senior colonel [military rank in China, Vietnam and the DPRK, as well as in Argentina and Morocco] decided to tell his story to the BBC. This is the first time in history that a senior North Korean military man has been interviewed by a leading media outlet.

I was “redder than the red ones,” he says about himself. A faithful servant of communist power.

But in the DPRK, neither high rank nor unconditional loyalty to the authorities guarantee security.

Kim Kuk-sung - let's call him that - fled for his life in 2014 and has since lived in Seoul, where he has been collaborating with South Korean intelligence.

According to him, the North Korean elite desperately needs money and makes money in all ways - from drug trafficking to selling weapons to the Middle East and Africa.

He also talked about how decisions are made in Pyongyang, about the regime's attacks on South Korea, and how North Korean undercover espionage and hacking have infiltrated all over the world.

The BBC cannot independently verify his words, but journalists know his real name, and, where possible, they have found confirmation of them from other sources.

"Team of Killers"

Photo: Shutterstock

In the last years of his service, Kim Kuk-song observed from the inside the early stages of Kim Jong-un's development as head of the DPRK. According to him, the young man always sought to show himself as a “warrior.”

In 2009, immediately after the current leader Kim Jong Il's father suffered a stroke and Kim Jong Un became his recognized successor, a new intelligence service was created - the General Intelligence Bureau. Kim Yong Chol, who to this day remains one of the most trusted people of the ruling family, was appointed his boss.

The former colonel said that in May 2009, an order came from above to create a group of liquidators to secretly assassinate government official Hwang Zhang Yup who had fled to the South.

According to him, the heir sought to demonstrate his determination and give a gift to his sick father. “I personally supervised this task,” he said.

Hwang Zhang Yep was once the architect of all DPRK politics and one of the first persons in the state. The Kim family never forgave him for his escape in 1997. While living in Seoul, he sharply criticized the North Korean regime.

The assassination attempt failed. The two North Korean majors to whom it was entrusted are still serving sentences in a South Korean prison. Official Pyongyang always claimed that it had nothing to do with it, and called the incident a South Korean provocation.

Now Kim Kook Sung confirms that his former bosses were behind the assassination attempt.

“Terrorism has been and remains in North Korea a tool of policy and protection of the highest dignity of Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un,” he says.

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Further more. On March 26, 2010, the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan was sunk in the Yellow Sea by a torpedo, killing 46 sailors. Pyongyang said it had nothing to do with this.

On November 23 of the same year, several dozen artillery shells hit the South Korean island of Yongpyeong. Two Marines and two civilians were killed, 16 soldiers and three civilians were injured.

In this case, it was impossible to hide the involvement of the DPRK, but disputes about who exactly gave the order continue to this day.

According to Kim Kuk Sung, he was not directly involved in these matters, but the staff of the General Bureau were proud of them and bragged about them.

Such things could not have happened without sanction from the very top, he is sure.

“In North Korea, you can’t even build a road without the personal approval of the Supreme Leader. And the sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeongdo were definitely not decisions that one of his subordinates could make.

Such operations are planned and carried out only on the special orders of Kim Jong-un and are considered as the achievement of the executors,” the senior defector said.

Spy in the Blue House

According to Kim Kuk Son, he was developing a strategy towards South Korea, the goal of which was defined as “political subjugation.”

Naturally, this implied the need to have eyes and ears there.

“On many occasions, I sent spies to the South and carried out certain operations through them,” our interlocutor asserted.

He did not elaborate on the nature of these assignments, but gave one impressive example.

“In the early 1990s, there was a case where a North Korean agent infiltrated the Blue House [the residence and office of the President of South Korea], worked there for five or six years, and then returned safely and was given a position in the 314th Liaison Office of the Workers' Party of Korea [ code name for a unit engaged in computer intelligence], he said. “I can assure you that North Korean agents have widely infiltrated government agencies and civil society organizations in South Korea.”

The BBC has no way of verifying this claim, but reporters have seen exposed North Korean spies, and the founder of North Korea News, Chad O'Carroll, wrote in a recent article that there are dozens of them in South Korean prisons.

According to North Korea News, they continue to be arrested periodically.

Another agent, sent from the North, was recently detained. But since 2017, there have been fewer such cases. Probably, North Korean intelligence has partially switched to high-tech methods of gathering information.

Army of hackers

North Korea is one of the poorest and most isolated countries from the world, but previous defectors assured that Pyongyang did not skimp on creating an entire army of about 6 thousand skilled hackers.

According to Kim Kuk-song, the father of the current ruler, Kim Jong Il, gave the order back in the 1980s to begin training personnel and “prepare for cyber war.”

“Moranbong University began to take the brightest young people from all over the country and train them for six years,” he says.

According to British intelligence analysts, the high-profile computer attacks on Sony Pictures Corporation in 2014 and on the National Health Service and other organizations in the United Kingdom in 2017 were carried out by North Korean hackers known as the Lazarus group, which was directed by the 314th office.

“Among ourselves, we called it “Kim Jong-un’s information center,” said Kim Kuk Song, adding that the head of the secret department has a direct telephone connection with the Supreme Leader.

“I heard that the employees of the 314th office, in addition to the territory of the DPRK, work from China, Russia and Southeast Asian countries. Their responsibilities also include maintaining and ensuring secure communications with North Korean agents abroad,” he said.

Methamphetamine for dollars

Kim Kuk-sung was tasked with creating a secret currency "revolutionary fund" through drug sales.

“Drug production in North Korea reached its peak during the ‘hard march’ period.” Having received the task, I brought three foreign specialists to the country and with their help created a laboratory for the production of methamphetamine on the territory of the training camp, code-named “715th Liaison Office”. The proceeds were considered a personal gift to Kim Jong-un,” he said.

The story looks believable.

North Korea has a long history of producing heroin and opium. Former employee of the DPRK embassy in London, Tae Yong Ho, who remained in the West, declared at the Oslo Freedom Forum in 2019 that drug exports in his country are organized by the state.

“Just to be clear, all the money in North Korea belongs to the Supreme Leader,” the former intelligence officer responded. “He builds villas on them, buys foreign cars, delicacies, clothes and luxury goods.”

According to various sources, during the years of the “difficult campaign” in the DPRK, from several thousand to a million people died of starvation.

Submarines for the Ayatollahs

Another source of income, according to Kim, was the illegal sale of weapons to Iran.

“These were primarily mini-submarines and special-purpose underwater vehicles. North Korea has achieved great success in creating them,” he said.

Here Kim Kook Sung may have exaggerated, as North Korean submarines are powered by old, noisy engines.

However, he argued that the trade was very successful. One North Korean intelligence official in Iran boasted to him that he was negotiating with partners in his basin, he said.

One of the world's leading experts on North Korea, Russian professor Andrei Lankov, who works at Seoul Kunming University, notes that arms deals between North Korea and Iran have not been a special secret since the 1980s, including even the supply of ballistic missiles to Tehran.

Despite strict international sanctions, Pyongyang continues to develop weapons of mass destruction.

In September of this year, he tested four systems: a long-range cruise missile, a rail-based ballistic missile, a hypersonic missile, and an anti-aircraft missile. North Korean military technology is becoming more sophisticated.

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According to Kim Kuk Son, Pyongyang sold weapons and military technology not only to Iran, but also to other states under sanctions or where there were protracted civil wars. In recent years, the UN has named Syria, Myanmar, Libya and Sudan in this context.

Resentment of the Faithful Servant

Photo: Shutterstock

In his homeland, Kim Kuk-song belonged to a privileged elite, drove a Mercedes that belonged to Kim Jong-un's aunt, and traveled abroad without any restrictions, selling rare metals and coal and bringing cash in his suitcase.

By the standards of a country where millions are undernourished, he led a fabulous existence.

The connections in the highest circles, acquired by him through a successful marriage, allowed him to move from one special service to another with a promotion. But these same connections once became dangerous.

Shortly after coming to power in 2011, Kim Jong-un decided to get rid of everyone he considered dangerous, including his uncle Jang Song-Taek, who, according to experts, actually ruled the country during the last years of Kim Jong-il's life. The state media mentioned him more often than the heir.

“I felt that Jang Sung-taek would not last long, but I thought that he would be sent to the village,” says Kim Kuk-sung.

Unexpectedly for everyone, in December, the execution of the all-powerful ruler was announced yesterday.

“To say that I was amazed is to say nothing,” said Kim Kuk Song. “It was a fatal blow, I was horrified.” It became clear that I was also in danger, and that North Korea had become a place where it was impossible to live.”

The scout found out about the execution of Jang Song-Taek from the newspapers while abroad on another assignment. He began to ponder a plan to escape to South Korea with his family.

“Leaving the country where my ancestors are buried and moving to South Korea, which has always remained foreign to me, was a great grief and stress,” he says.

Even through his dark glasses, I saw that this memory was hard for him.

"Not a hundred percent"

The intelligence officer explains why he decided to speak out now: “This is my last duty, I want to help my brothers in the North get rid of dictatorship and taste freedom.”

More than 30 thousand North Korean defectors live in South Korea, but only a few dare to speak to the media. The higher a person was in a previous life, the greater the risk.

In addition, some South Koreans question their stories, which cannot be verified.

Kim Kook Sung has lived an extraordinary life. His story provides a rare insight into the North Korean regime and how it ensures its survival.

“The entire political culture of North Korea, their judgment about everything, their way of thinking is entirely based on unconditional obedience to the Supreme Leader,” he says. — Over the course of generations, what is called a “devoted heart” is developed.

The interview took place at a remarkable moment.

Kim Jong-un said that he was ready to return to negotiations with the South in the near future if certain conditions were met.

But Kim Kook Sung is skeptical.

“North Korea hasn't changed at all in the years that I've lived here,” he says. — The strategy to which I myself had a hand continues to be pursued. They haven’t changed one hundredth of a percent.”

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