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Chollima Civil Defense just became a serious threat to Kim Jong-un’s misrule (Update: No, it didn’t.)

Update: As of today, it looks like most of what we’ve read about this story was untrue — starting with the lack of evidence that any of the people involved were even North Koreans. They appear to have been U.S., South Korean, and Mexican nationals instead. They aren’t going to publish what they found on the computers, either. They just handed them over to the FBI, which potentially puts the FBI in the difficult position of holding property stolen from a consular facility, contrary to the Vienna Convention, and that probably contains evidence of crimes. (Update: ACKshually, the case law says that the evidence on those devices would probably admissible in the prosecution of a third party. See this footnote.1) If that is confirmed, it would mean Chollima’s activities pose little threat to Kim Jong-un and may well provide a propaganda benefit to it. At this point, I wonder how many Chollima members there even are who are not at imminent risk of arrest.

Chollima has claimed responsibility, denied assaulting any embassy staff, and rather improbably said its members were invited in. Oh, and the probability that the CIA was behind this just declined from 5 percent to 1 percent. Yonhap is now filled with stories about the raid and U.S. denials of involvement, after barely reporting the raid in the first place. At least the U.S. denial seems credible now. As for Adrian Hong, I wish him well, and I hope he finds himself a very good lawyer. You could have knocked me over with a gnat’s wing when I read his name. These aren’t the methods I’d have counseled, but a comparison to John Brown may not be completely out of order.

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A mysterious February raid on the North Korean embassy in Madrid now looks to have been the work of Chollima Civil Defense, also known as Free Chosun, the first documented North Korean resistance organization since the immediate aftermath of the Korean War. What recently looked like a small band of plucky dissidents may soon pose a serious threat to Pyongyang’s financial and political security. How can this be so, when Chollima has no demonstrated presence inside North Korea itself? Because Chollima’s raid targeted the financial and political vulnerabilities that hide behind Pyongyang’s image of military strength. By raiding the North Korean embassy in Madrid, Chollima stands to strike body blows against both vulnerabilities.

For a first major operation, the Madrid raid was impressive. It was brazen and imperfectly executed, but ultimately succeeded in making off with computers and mobile phones that could contain a windfall of intelligence and kompromat. It appears to have been carefully planned. The raiders knew what they wanted, got it, and got away. They had enough resources to obtain (and later, abandon) “two luxury vehicles” they used to flee the scene. And presumably, the Spanish Police are not amateurs, but a professional force with decades of experience chasing Basque terrorists.

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On several levels, it is not surprising that a left-leaning Spanish newspaper, El País, initially blamed the raid on the CIA. The Russian propaganda outfit Sputnik was spreading that theory before El País printed it. Whoever has read “Homage to Catalonia” or the story of Alexander Orlov knows how long the Spanish left has been exploited by Russian spies. And superficially, the actions of a well-planned and well-resourced operation do point to the assistance of a professional intelligence organization.

But other aspects of this theory never quite added up. First, the execution of the raid during the Hanoi summit would suggest an intent to frustrate, rather than to support, U.S. policy objectives. This argument will do nothing to persuade left- and right-wing conspiracy theorists who harbor a Jason Bourne world view, but intelligence officers are no different than other federal bureaucrats ” afraid of being fired or disciplined, as prone to political bias and tribalism as bureaucrats anywhere else, and fearful of being ratted out by dissenting or disgruntled colleagues. Plotting to invade a foreign consulate in violation of the Vienna Convention would be a very big risk, and would probably require presidential approval. And while it doesn’t strain the limits of plausibility to imagine such an operation as a dark-of-night “black bag job” by one or two highly trained intruders, doing it in broad daylight seems implausibly conspicuous for an agency that can presumably eavesdrop on that embassy as it is.

It’s fair to note that Chollima has previously thanked diplomats from several foreign governments, including the U.S., the Netherlands, and Taiwan, for their help in rescuing Kim Jong-un’s nephew, Kim Han-sol. But aiding Chollima’s rescue of someone as sympathetic as this young man is one thing; knowingly assisting in the planning or execution of a raid on a foreign embassy is another. For what it’s worth, Chollima denies having any foreign help with the Madrid raid. It has not publicly claimed responsibility for the raid, but did hint at it:

On Feb. 25 the website posted a statement saying the group had “received a request for help from comrades in a certain Western country” and that “it was a highly dangerous situation but (we) responded.” The group said an important announcement would be coming that week, but no details of any operation have been released. [Reuters]

A more intriguing line of inquiry is how Chollima might have found the financial and operational resources to plan an operation of this kind without foreign help. Between 2014 and 2016, several North Korean money launderers defected in various places in Europe and Russia. So did several high-ranking officials in the North Korean intelligence services, and a number of North Korean hackers, including a group of ten who defected in China in early 2017. One recent report even claims that U.S. intelligence got its hands on one of their servers. Consider the collection of assets and skills these defectors possessed: bank account numbers, access to large amounts of money, expertise in how to move and hide it, contacts with other North Koreans who might be wavering or disloyal, knowledge of how to plan and execute complex intelligence operations, and enough knowledge of information technology to set up a web site and conceal who runs it.

An example that combines several of these skills is Chollima’s sale of “G-Visas” to those who make financial contributions to it in Bitcoin — another skill that North Korean hackers and money launderers have perfected (start at paragraph 109). Delectably, the appeal offers a “Limited issuance of 200,000 anonymous blockchain visas to visit Free Joseon (previously North Korea) upon liberation.” Previously ” I like the sound of that. I have no information to suggest how many (if any) of those defectors joined up with Chollima, but its web site publishes a number of testimonials it claims are from defectors it rescued. If even a few of these highly skilled money launderers, intelligence officers, and hackers are assisting Chollima, they could have carried out an operation at this level of sophistication with little outside help.

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The fact that the raiders wanted computers and cell phones also hints at Chollima’s tactical goals. Those computers and phones will contain contacts to recruit and exploit, emails to read and post online, and bank accounts to drain. Documents Chollima posts online could be immensely embarrassing — and potentially, incriminating — to its bankers, business partners, spies, and sympathizers. They could provide invaluable leads for law enforcement. They could be equally invaluable to prosecutors in proving that North Korea’s enablers in the banking industry or export businesses acted with the requisite intent to violate sanctions or launder money to promote other illicit activity. Major money laundering, intelligence, and influence operations from New York to Kuala Lumpur could be compromised and shut down. The raid and its secondary consequences will also sow mistrust among North Korean diplomats and agents abroad. North Korean counterintelligence is probably already deciding who to call home to interrogate about “inside job” theories. That mistrust will get effective operatives called home and killed. Others, who may already be wavering, will choose not to go home, just as Thae Yong-ho did.

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But if Chollima’s greatest immediate threats to Pyongyang are operational, legal, and financial, its words pose a far greater political threat in the long term. A few days after the Madrid raid, Chollima wrote “Free Korea” on the walls of another North Korean embassy, on the other side of the world.

[“Free Korea” — I like the sound of that, too.]

Word of the Madrid raid will be big news in South Korea. That means it will also find its way back into North Korea, just as word of Kim Jong-un’s mishandling of the Hanoi summit did. This news will inspire intense and desperate hope among North Korea’s latent dissenters. They will not only learn that others share their dissent, but also that members of the elites, no less, have organized to launch a low-level global insurgency against the state. Chollima’s words are powerful. Read its inspiring March 1st declaration of a government in exile, on the 100th anniversary of Korea’s March 1st uprising against the Japanese occupation. 

One hundred years ago on this day, our ancestors spoke into being a Korea independent and free, calling on their compatriots to rise and overthrow a system of wanton oppression and intolerable indignities. Risking their lives, they heralded a new era of enlightenment: one in which women and men were endowed with certain unalienable Rights, and a fair and just nation would protect and provide for the welfare and happiness of all Koreans, in harmony with the Peninsula’s neighbors.

This great task remains unfinished. On this very day tens of millions of our fellow Koreans remain enslaved by a depraved power, ruled by a corrupt few made wealthy by the toils of many, building its capacity for unimaginable destruction, presenting a smile and an open hand to the willfully blind who surmise that, with only the right words and tribute, such entrenched totalitarianism might be charmed into surrender.

We the People of Joseon, indict this immoral and illegitimate regime:

For the devastating starvation of millions, despite the ability to feed them;

For government-sponsored murder, torture, and imprisonment;

For overwhelming surveillance and thought-control;

For systemic rape, enslavement, and forced abortions;

For political assassinations and acts of terror around the world;

For the forced labor and stifled potential of our children;

For the enforced poverty of body, mind, and opportunity;

For the development and distribution of modern weapons of great destruction, shared and sold to others who would also use them towards cruel ends;

For even still a great many compounding iniquities.

For decades we hoped for rescue, while our families were held hostage. We watched powerful and wealthy nations ignore our pleas, and enrich and embolden our tormentors. We gazed at incredible feats of prosperity and developments to the south, hoping that with their rising strength they would remember their sisters and brothers left behind by history. [Chollima Civil Defense]

That news will also find its way back to North Korea. Most North Koreans who read these words will still feel isolated and terrorized, but perhaps a few will find the courage and inspiration to conspire and organize. A world that has failed the people of North Korea, that has failed to act to stop the crimes committed against them, has no moral standing to deny them the right to rise in their own defense. At best, it can counsel them that rising too suddenly or too violently against the state may have the effect of consolidating, rather than loosening, the loyalty of regime officials who will have to change sides to end those crimes. For now, I wish Chollima all the luck in the world at stealing back the money that Pyongyang has already stolen from the people. That’s why this raid could do grave political and financial damage to Pyongyang, both abroad and at home. It probably won’t be the last, either.

Kim Jong-un must be furious and terrified. No doubt, he has already dispatched every officer the Reconnaissance General Bureau can spare to hunt down the raiders, wherever they are. That makes it doubly unfortunate that our Treasury Department has been derelict in its legal duty to freeze the assets of the massive RGB money laundering network known as Glocom. It’s not the only such network that continues to enjoy access to the U.S. banking system, but it’s the biggest one funding the agents who will stop at nothing to snuff out this brave little resistance group. Within weeks of the March 1919 uprising, little remained of it but a government in exile. But great things have small beginnings. Pray for the safety and success of this brave little band. If they can cripple the regime abroad and inspire the people at home, they may become our best hope for a free and peaceful Korea.

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1. This case, from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, holds that even when law enforcement seizes evidence in violation of the Vienna Convention, suppression of the evidence is an inappropriate remedy, and that only parties to the Vienna Convention have standing to raise challenges under the Convention. Which means that if those computers contain evidence that Person A violated U.S. sanctions laws, Person A probably lacks both standing and a suppression remedy to challenge the admissibility of that evidence. Huh. But then again, that’s consistent with the landmark case of Rakas v. Illinois, in which the Supreme Court held that standing to challenge the admissibility of evidence belongs to the owner of the property from which the evidence was seized. None of which affects the ability of the various agencies to mirror, decrypt, and make use of evidence on those devices. It’s just that I think the government tends to overclassify documents and undervalue the public interest value of laying out evidence of skullduggery and shenanigans for all the world to see.

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2 Responses

  1. There is always a tipping point in such things. North Korea is, however, sui generis, and I am close to giving up on any kind of large-scale internal revolt in my lifetime.