The statements of a high-ranking former North Korean ex-officer about drug and arms trafficking coincide with the statements of other defectors.
According to a defector, North Korea is said to have used state-organized drug trafficking to procure foreign currency for the ruling Kim family for years. In the 1990s, he was entrusted with the task of raising “revolutionary funds” for the then ruler Kim Jong Il, the man told the BBC. That means drug money.
The man, who first appeared in public under the pseudonym Kim Kug Song, is said to have worked for the North Korean secret service for years and is now working for the South Korean secret service. It is the first time that such a high-ranking officer from Pyongyang has given an interview to a major broadcaster. The defector continues to report that he also sent assassins to kill critics.
Middle East and Africa
The informant paints a picture of a North Korean leadership desperately trying to make money by anything from drug trafficking to arms sales in the Middle East and Africa.
The officer says that in May 2009 an order was given to form a “terror task force” to kill a former North Korean official who defected south.
At that time, the current ruler Kim Jong-un was being prepared to succeed his father Kim Jong-il, who had suffered a stroke. “For Kim Jong-un, this was an act to please his father,” the informant said.
Terrorist group formed
“A terrorist group was formed to secretly assassinate Hwang Jang-yop. I personally directed and carried out the work,” the man said. To this day, Jang-yop is the highest-ranking North Korean who fled to South Korea. He was considered the chief ideologist of North Korea.
But the attack went wrong. Two North Korean military personnel are still serving a ten-year sentence for the attack in South Korea’s capital, Seoul. Pyongyang has always denied being involved in the attack, claiming that South Korea orchestrated the attack. Jang-yop died in Seoul in 2010 at the age of 87.
Report coincides
The defector’s statements about state-run drug laboratories in North Korea cannot be independently verified, but they do match the statements made by other North Korean defectors.
Thae Yong Ho, who once served in the North Korean embassy in London, spoke of North Korea’s state-sponsored drug trafficking at the Oslo Freedom Forum in 2019.
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