North Korea Security Personnel Run Protection Racket Amid Tightened Border Controls

Security personnel along North Korea’s border with China are encouraging residents to use illegal cellphones operating on Chinese satellite networks or defect in return for “protection” fees to make up for bribes that have dried up amid heightened controls in the region, sources said.

Illegal crossings of the Yalu and Tumen rivers—separating North Korea from China—and smuggling activities at the border have seen a significant downturn in recent weeks, leaving those who normally earn a living through payoffs in dire straits, the sources told RFA’s Korean Service over the weekend.

A resident of North Hamgyong province, near the border, said security personnel there had been forced to find new ways of supplementing their income.

“As the [central] authorities have cracked down on defections and smuggling very severely, security officials, policemen and border guards are facing difficult livelihoods,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Due to these substantial difficulties, they began searching for alternative sources of money by promoting other illegal activities.”

According to the source, security personnel have begun visiting the homes of defector families to warn of the tightened border situation as a pretext to collect protection money for helping them to use Chinese cellphones that can make calls outside of North Korea, or even to defect.

“The defector families who desperately need to make contact with people outside the country are being approached by security personnel with the suggestion that they can freely use cellphones [illegally operating on Chinese networks] as long as they’re protected,” he said.

“Some security personnel are even directly proposing the use of illegal cellphones and defection to the families and asking for money as a form of protection.”

Full story: rfa.org

Reported by Jieun Kim for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Changsop Pyon. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.