untitled design

Drugs, weapons and terror: Real life in North Korea

He describes himself as “the reddest of the reds”. A faithful servant of communist ideology, with years of devotion to North Korean regime. But, as he understood Kim Kook Song after 30 years of service in the top positions of the powerful spies of the Asian country, Your devotion to you guarantees absolutely nothing for your safety in North Korea.

In 2014, and as, for unknown reasons, he felt he had fallen into disfavor, he was forced to escapes from the country and has since lived in Seoul and worked for the South Korean intelligence services.

THE Kim agreed to speak to the BBC about what he experienced in North Korea – this is the first senior military official from Pyongyang to give an interview to an international network.

As he admits even today, of course, and now that he is an elderly man, he is still cautious, wearing black glasses and constantly looking… behind his back to see if anyone is watching him.

In his interview he claims that he offered services generously and without moral suspensions “To the Supreme Leader”, he sent assassins to execute critics of the regime and then, of course, kept all these secrets sevenfold.

Kim portrays the North Korean leadership as one “A government completely isolated from the rest of the world and ‘desperate to make money by any means possible’, from drug trafficking to arms sales in the Middle East and Africa.

“Terror groups” in the service of the regime

And how can Kim sleep peacefully, even under the protection of South Korea’s top secret agents, when he now admits that in 2009 he undertook to organize the assassination of former country officials who had surrendered to South Korea.

A “Terror Group” was set up to kill him [αυτομολήσαντα] Huang Zhang-yop. I personally directed and realized the project “, he says to the British news network, adding that the assassination failed as the plan went awry at the last minute.

“In North Korea, state terrorism is a political tool that protects the entities of both Kim Jong-il and formerly [πέθανε τον Δεκέμβριο του 2011], as well as his [νυν ηγέτη της χώρας] “Kim Jong Un”, he says, emphasizing that one of his responsibilities was to send spies to South Korea.

“There are many cases where spies go directly to South Korea and I made operational missions through them,” he claims, adding that now, with the arrival of 21ου century, this is not necessary as well North Korea has a very capable “army” of 6,000 skilled hackers as Pyongyang’s orders were “to prepare for a future cyber war.”

Drugs and weapons as state revenue

In the 1990s, under the leadership of Kim Jong Il, Kim was in the Operations Department and was instructed to raise “revolutionary funds” for the Supreme Leader. That, he says, was the code name for arms and drug trafficking.

“Drug production in North Korea peaked during the 1990s. It was then that I brought three foreigners to North Korea, set up a production base at the Labor Party training center and produced drugs, the known drug crystal meth, but also heroin and opium. “So we could then sell it and present to our Leader the profits from their sales.”

Asked by a BBC reporter where the money from the drugs went, he replied meaningfully: “All money in North Korea belongs to the leader of North Korea. With this money he builds villas, buys cars, food, clothes and other luxuries “.

And all this happened during worst period in the history of the country, when according to UN estimates, from by the end of the 1990s, the death toll in North Korea due to prolonged starvation reached one million!

Another source of revenue, according to Kim, is Illegal arms sales to Iran, such as ballistic missiles, have been a common secret since the 1980s. The former agent claims that the agreements were so successful that the North Korean deputy director in Iran invited the Iranians to his pool to close the agreements there.

According to Kim, Pyongyang It has also sold weapons and technology to countries that have waged long civil wars, such as Syria, Myanmar, Libya and Sudan.

“It’s been years since I came here, but North Korea has not changed at all. The strategy we created continues at a normal and smooth pace. What you need to know for sure is that North Korea has not changed even by 0.01% compared to before“, Kim concludes meaningfully.

You may also like

NZD/USD falls on dovish RBNZ stance
Markets
Joshua

NZD/USD falls on dovish RBNZ stance

RBNZ Governor Orr was dovish, which seems to put pressure on the New Zealand Dollar. GDP and initial jobless claims

Get the latest

Stay Informed: Get the Latest Updates and Insights

 

Most popular