"DPRK Defector Group Pockets Public Funds for Fake DPRK Reports"
(English summary of Korean-language news article)
RoK-based defectors’ group North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity (NKIS) cooks up anti-DPRK propaganda, plants it in RoK media, and ultimately collects the RoK government's DPRK-intelligence finder's fees, says RoK media outlet Newstapa.
NKIS, which purports to comprise "defector intellectuals," fabricates sensational anti-DPRK stories and feeds them to receptive journalists. When the phony stories are published, NKIS demands intelligence-gathering payments from RoK's Ministry of Security and Public Administration.
Upon receiving RoK government funds, NKIS disburses them to unaffiliated DPRK defectors that NKIS members happen to know. When those defectors receive the RoK government money, NKIS tells them to transfer the money back to NKIS. In this way, NKIS tries to hide its money trail.
Glowing coverage in Anglo media says that NKIS pays its sources, but in actuality, North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity is using RoK government money to pay itself for stories it fabricates.
NKIS may also collaborate with elements from the Ministry of Security & Public Administration or other government sectors. Newstapa found NKIS's office guarded by an RoK police officer (the blurred-out figure who stands idly by as NKIS head Kim Heung Kwang appears to assault Newstapa's camerman).
Newstapa discovered NKIS's payment scheme by researching RoK government payments to NGOs. Newstapa found that NKIS had billed the RoK government for three payments of approximately $3000 each to a defector named Kim Yeon-ran, supposedly for high-level anti-DPRK intelligence that Kim had supplied to NKIS.
But, when Newstapa contacted Kim Yeon-ran, Kim said they'd never given any special information about DPRK to anyone, nor were they in any position to do so. Kim took money from NKIS as a favor to a friend who worked there, and returned the money to NKIS without keeping a cent.
One of the stories that NKIS attributed to Kim Yeon-ran appeared in RoK's KBS news in Oct 2016. The story claimed that Kim Jong Un would abandon DPRK's nuclear program in exchange for $50 billion and US military withdrawal from RoK.
Kim Yeon-ran specifically denied having been the source for that story, telling Newstapa: "I don't even care if Kim Jong Un abandons DPRK's nuclear program or not."
Another bogus story, which NK Intellectuals Solidarity planted in RoK's MBC News, claimed that DPRK was developing nuclear torpedoes & nuclear underwater mines. The phone number of the defector to whom NKIS attributed that story has been disconnected.
Newstapa calculates that North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity has collected at least approximately $24,000 for its fake DPRK stories since 2016.
