| Hat tip Josh Stanton at OneFreeKorea. |
A source in China, who works in collaboration with Seoul government officials, on Thursday revealed the recent defection of the general, a diplomat and two others. The source said that the North Korean military officer was in charge of managing Kim Jong-un’s slush funds in Southeast Asia.
The general was in China on a business trip when he was joined by the three other North Koreans on July 12th. The diplomat is known to have parted ways with the group and is seeking political asylum in a country other than South Korea, while the other three are staying in China, making their own plans to defect to another country.
| No sense going home when your companions have defected... |
The source said the four didn't choose to defect to South Korea partly because of a petition by the Lawyers for a Democratic Society filed last month for habeas corpus relief of 12 North Korean restaurant workers in China who defected to Seoul in April.
The source said that the four North Koreans decided to leave their country due to their dissatisfaction with the Kim Jong-un regime and pessimistic views about the future of the country.
| Right now we can only hope that the general is being debriefed by CIA and Treasury agents. All the information he carries in his head, laptop and cell phone are being copied. All account numbers, amounts, and bank information will be very useful to cross-check what we already know. What people might not get is that new compliance rules implemented by the Treasury Department and EU bank regulators, as a result of the new sanctions, make it very difficult for a bank to do business with anyone who does business with North Korea and stay open. Simply demonstrate that Pudgy or one of his minions has an account at a bank, and that bank risks closure. They'll cooperate. But first we need to know which accounts, and for that this new defection is just excellent news. |