Man who spied on North Korean defectors, soldiers for Pyongyang operative gets 5 years

A man in his 40s who collected information on North Korean defectors and active-duty South Korean military personnel under orders from a North Korean operative has been sentenced to prison.

Seoul Central District Court's Criminal Division 21, presided over by Chief Judge Jo Sun-pyo, sentenced the defendant, identified only as A, 43, to five years in prison and five years' suspension of civil rights on charges including espionage under the National Security Act.

A, who ran a virtual assets investment firm, received instructions via Telegram from a North Korean operative in May and June 2021 to identify the personal details and activities of North Korean defectors with anti-Pyongyang views, according to the investigation. In the process, he received about 660 million won ($485,000) worth of virtual assets from the operative, ostensibly as operating funds for his investment business.

A then approached B, the head of a defector organization, claiming he wanted to make a donation, and asked B to set up a virtual asset wallet. He passed the wallet address to the North Korean operative, who transferred bitcoin worth about 1 million won under the guise of a donation. A used this as leverage to obtain from B videos and photos of the organization's anti-North Korea leaflet-dropping events.

A also contacted a North Korean defector YouTuber who had previously worked for the North's security services, telling the person, "I have always had a great interest in North Korean human rights issues. I hope we can have a relaxed conversation over a glass of soju sometime." Through this exchange, he obtained the person's mobile phone number.

In July 2021, A received further orders from the operative to verify the identities of seven active-duty military officers — including their names, unit assignments and resident registration numbers — and recruit them, the investigation found.

He accessed the SNS account of one of the officers, a captain identified as C, and obtained photos of C in uniform and of his face. He then hired a private investigator, telling the agency he wanted to know about the romantic life of "someone his daughter was seeing." The agency, which received bitcoin worth about 2.5 million won from A, tracked C and reported back on his unit, military housing, room number, schedule and movements.

Between August and September of that year, A also contacted another officer via Telegram and offered to pay for military organizational charts and other information, but was turned down.

The court said the photographs, contact details and activity records of defectors engaged in anti-North Korea activities "have genuine value warranting protection as confidential, as their disclosure to North Korea could be used to track or harm those individuals, or to retaliate against their families still in the North."

On sentencing, the court said A "received virtual assets worth more than 600 million won from a North Korean operative and carried out acts benefiting the enemy in accordance with his instructions, making the nature of the crime grave." It added that A "denied the charges throughout and offered implausible excuses, making it difficult to find any genuine remorse."

A had earlier been separately indicted on charges of approaching an active-duty officer under orders from the same operative and leaking military secrets. The Supreme Court upheld a sentence of four years in prison and four years' suspension of civil rights in that case in December last year.