North Korea News Podcast by NK News - North Korea expert arrested for spying, and overachieving DPRK Olympians

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

North Korea only sent 14 athletes to compete at the Paris Olympics, its first Summer Games in eight years, but its small contingent managed to take home six medals, demonstrating the country’s ability to consistently punch above its weight in sports. NK News correspondent Shreyas Reddy discusses where the DPRK had the most success, and […]

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And here in Scorching Soul, this episode was recorded on Tuesday, the 13th of August, 2024. And we're doing it a little bit different today. Today I'm joined by not one but two colleagues. I've got Ifang Bremer and Shreyas Reddy around the table. Welcome, Yifang. Welcome, Shreyas. Thank you. Good morning. Got two very timely and topical stories to talk about. Let's start with Shreyas first with the more fun story, I guess. So North Korea participated in the first Olympic Games since the 28th Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Korea. That's quite an absence, six and a half years. How, well, where do you want to start? How did they do? How big

was their delegation? Pretty small one, to be honest. So in the end, only 14 athletes made it to the Games. They initially had a few more, but there was some last minute withdrawals a couple of weeks before the Games. And so in the end, they ended up sending their smallest delegation ever to a single Summer Olympics. Boy, okay. And how did they do? Well, in terms of medals to the contingent size they did all right. Officially it is their least successful Olympics since 2000 because they won no gold medals which is the main factor when it comes to the medal rankings.

But they still picked up six medals, two silvers and four bronze medals. And that was despite missing their biggest sporting strength, which is their weightlifting squad. Ah, okay. So, they're normally good at weightlifting, but you're saying that there were no weightlifters at all this time? Yes. So it was a little complicated in terms of the fact that.

So the weightlifting qualification requirements meant that they had to attend a certain number of events last year and secure qualification that way. Right. They initially registered for qualification event in Cuba last summer, but somehow dropped out after that they eventually returned. They've won just about everything since then. They've set numerous world records, but they needed to have that one more event to be eligible to participate in the Olympics and they missed out on that. So which events were they in the end, participating in then?

So there were a few of the usual suspects for them like wrestling and boxing, but also a few others where perhaps historically they haven't done as well. Diving in particular was a notable one where they ended up winning two medals this time and they have never won any diving medals before. Is it individual diving or synchronized? Both. So in the women's 10-meter platform synchronized event. They won this they won a silver and one of the divers from that pair later participated in the solo event for the same category and

Ended up winning a bronze medal in that. Hmm. Okay. What about tech one door? So tech one though, they're not they're not participating Olympics In fact, they haven't participated in the Olympics before part of that is down to the fact that there is a fundamental divide in how Taekwondo is administered at the global level. So there's a more South Korea friendly version of Taekwondo. WTF, the World Taekwondo Federation.

And then you've got the International Taekwondo Federation which is more affiliated with North Korea. I thought there was some attempt to reconcile the two years and years ago. Yes, so about a decade ago, they did reach an agreement that would have meant officially only the South Korea backed one is affiliated with the IOC, the National Olympic Committee. But so what they, the arrangement that they reached would allow North Korean, sorry, athletes who qualified through the alternate system or even other countries to participate in the Olympics,

as long as they negotiated and arranged it with the World Academy of Federation. But 2016 would have been the first time that could have happened. North Korea didn't send anyone at that time. 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, they withdrew. And yeah, this time also definitely nothing like that. And frankly, at this point, they're not really talking to South Koreans.

So I can't see them getting all that involved, even though it should be pointed out, it's a global body. It's not a South Korean body. But it's not something that they seem particularly interested in at the moment. Wow. Okay. And did you watch any of the North Korean games live?

Some in the way with a lot of difficulty, but, um, yeah, but not really having a TV connection here doesn't help. Right. That doesn't help. But yeah, they, on the whole, they did quite well. So obviously I mentioned the diving. They also won a silver in mixed doubles, mixed doubles table tennis, which was quite a shock because the pair that won the medal, they only really played together at the international for the

first time in the qualifiers a few months ago. And then they made it to the Olympics. Their first match was against the second seeds from Japan. Beat them, beat the fourth seeds, beat a few more, another top contender before eventually losing out in the final against a Chinese pair that pretty much wins everything. I also thought that wrestling was pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. This is the the Greco-Roman, not the pro wrestling, which I prefer. No, so freestyle. Freestyle wrestling. Yeah, so North Korea won the country's first ever Olympic medal

in women's wrestling. They got a bronze medal and that was a pretty fierce battle. It was cool to watch. Yeah. Wonder if she's in the army. When she's not an athlete. Well, so as you're all to point out, so there was one men's Greco-Roman wrestler

and the women who participated, well, there is only freestyle for the women at the Olympics. They're gonna get pro wrestling in there I won't be happy until they get pro wrestling in the Olympics. Well someday I mean, we know that breaking So let's get the pro wrestling in and pro wrestling has gone to North Korea in the past. That's right collision in Korea 1995 yeah But yeah wrestling of course as if I mentioned was an area where they won They picked up a couple more bronze medals and boxing as well.

Another bronze medal. Now we've got to go back to the table tennis where North Korea got the silver medal because there was a photographic moment there, shall we say, that really took the world by storm. Yeah. So the International Olympic Committee has particularly tried to promote the idea of victory selfies where athletes take selfies on the podium. Now, this is something that, as you can imagine, isn't a concept North Korean athletes are all that familiar with. But certainly the South Koreans who happened to be on the same podium were much more proficient

with it. So North Korean-Chinese and South Korean pair on the podium. The South Koreans led the way, took a selfie, and many people celebrated the selfie, took it as a sign of a sports diplomacy. But for all practical purposes, at the end of the day, it's perhaps more just a case of individuals leaning into the whole thing and going and, you know, just having these positive interactions.

Did they look happy, these North Korean athletes in the photograph? I thought the guy looked really unhappy. He seemed to be a bit grim, but that might also be instructions given to him. Right, because this was, I mean, to a certain extent it was spontaneous,

but it was also part of a sponsorship deal, was it not, Shreyas? They should have known it was coming, yeah. Right, so at every podium, Samsung was there with phones yeah so yeah this is pretty much Samsung phones were given to all the athletes other than North Korean athletes which is a not the story but we'll get to that but yeah so essentially as the function there's a chance that they may have been instructed not to smile certainly the woman in the pair

ended up smiling a little bit. But if there were any, I think that some people said, oh, they're gonna get into trouble for posing with South Koreans. But if there were any such issues, it certainly didn't stop them because last week, boxers from Northern South Korea shared the podium again. And again, with a stony

face expression from the North Korean they took a selfie so clearly there she hadn't been told not to do it. So let's go on with the with the second part of the story there the fact that Samsung gave free mobile phones to all athletes except those from North Korea. Yeah. Or rather, Samsung gave them to the IOC. How did this work? Take us to the story. So Samsung would give the phones to the IOC, distribute them. They'd essentially be part of a welcome pack for the athletes.

And throughout the Olympics, we saw lots of athletes share excitedly their new flip phones from Samsung, post videos and selfies on social media, obviously the victory selfies on the podium, plenty of great PR for Samsung right there. But at some point, someone raised concerns. Were these phones also given to North Korea? Now going back to 2018 Pyeongchang, at that time there was a story that North Korean athletes were told that they couldn't, the North Korean delegation was told they could not take those phones back because that would constitute a sanctions violation, taking technology back.

Curious, probably. So this time someone raised the same concerns. Radio Free Asia reached out to the IOC and published a story saying that the IOC said they will be allowed to keep the phones. Now this led to a lot of concern. South Korean government said that if that happens, it could constitute a sanctions issue, but left the ball firmly in the IOC's court.

In the meantime, we reached out to the IOC, some others also also reached out to the IOC for clarification and they then said, very explicitly, the forms have not been given to the North Korean athletes. Now, I'm a man who has long expressed doubts, concerns, criticism of the International Olympic Committee. There's a lot of corruption there, I think. One day that whole edifice will come crumbling down and I won't shed a single tear over it. But I am, well, and here's an extra bit of disappointment to add to that mix. I'm surprised that the IOC said, okay we'll

take all those phones and give them to every athlete around the world, regardless of country, except for North Korea. I find that a bit, I mean that smacks of unfairness. The IOC should have said either everyone gets them or nobody gets them. That would be in the spirit of the International Olympics. I think it depends a lot on what instructions they were given. For example, if they were told back in Pyeongchang 2018 the organizers were given the instructions that you can give them, that if they take the phones, they have to give them back at the end.

I think that's probably more complicated. This is perhaps easier if they were just told they're not allowed to take the phones, they don't include them in the North Koreans welcome pack. Obviously, there are questions about what the point is of all this. It's not like North Koreans don't have their own smartphones. It's not like they haven't figured out how to reverse engineer

Samsung phones in the past. But at the end of the day, sanctions are sanctions. So they're not, from the IOC's point of view, assuming that things are as they say they are, they probably wouldn't want to take a chance on it. And then they probably shouldn't have given them to any athletes, is my humble opinion. And a last bit of comic relief there, Shreyas Howard Lee, the Hong Kong-born Australian Kim Jong-un impersonator turned up with a Donald Trump impersonator again, dancing and acting the fool in front of the North Korean cheerleaders. Well, obviously this time we didn't have North Korean cheerleaders at the Olympics. If North Korea wanted to send a cheering squad, that would perhaps been a little complicated

considering the ongoing border restrictions. They haven't yet fully lifted them. But certainly he did turn up. He apparently got kicked out of the men's soccer final and also supposedly got detained for his antics alongside Trump impersonator in Paris. So not for long, but still it does seem like he did manage to make a bit of a nuisance of himself for the French authorities. Boy, okay. Well, I wonder, did he get sponsorship for this kind of thing? I mean, it seems like a lot of money to travel around the world and just anger North Korean

authorities. Anyway, we spent enough time on the Olympics. this kind of thing. I mean, it seems like a lot of money to travel around the world and just anger North Korean authorities. Anyway, we spent enough time in the Olympics. Ifang, let's talk about a bit of a heavier story and full disclosure, I personally know the man that you're about to talk about and have had for several years, so this is a story that affects me personally. Yeah. All right, so where should we start then? Let's go to Geneva. Yeah, so this story is about a Canadian man, a North Korea expert and former UN official who basically kind of vanished, disappeared for his friends earlier this year. Mm-hmm yeah middle of March. Yes. And for the purpose of this story we're just gonna call him Craig by his first name as

we've used in the NK News story. We're not going to reveal his full details. So yeah, go ahead. Yeah, so we decided to not publish the suspect's full name because he's not been convicted yet and authorities have not made public charges against him. But yeah, this story is about a man named Craig and we found out together with Der Spiegel and Ta Media, a Swiss media organization, that this man has been in detention in Switzerland on charges, or at least on suspicions of espionage. So that kind of cleared up why Franz Kuhn be in touch with him. And this person is also, yeah, he knows a lot about North Korea so traveled there many times traveled there and we yeah that's also why he commented once for NK News on a news event so it was quite a big

shock to those who know him and also the people who are into North Korea professionally. Right and I mean for me this reminds me of another story of a Canadian who was arrested by the Chinese back in late 2018. But this is a little bit of a different story. In this case, I think he's suspected of having spied for the Chinese. Yeah. So we don't know exactly why he's in detention now, other than that he's on charge of espionage. We don't officially know for what country,

but through intelligence sources, our reporting revealed that Craig appeared in intelligence observations in 2021, when Swiss intelligence service was monitoring Chinese agents in the country through covert surveillance. And at the time, Craig was observed meeting with suspected Chinese spies in Geneva at restaurants. And at some point also one of the conversations that have been observed

covertly involved North Korean diplomats working in Geneva as well. So there is a possibility that Craig provided information about North Green diplomats to Chinese intelligence agents. Right. And not just any old Chinese intelligence agents, but specifically Chinese military intelligence agents, right? Yes, that's correct. And these intelligence agents were allegedly under diplomatic cover, as is quite common. So they would have some kind of title at the embassy, but actually they're spies.

Right. So they may have been, it's quite possible that they may have been the main target of the investigation by the Swiss authorities. Initially, yes. Back into 2021, Craig was not a main suspect of the investigation. He appeared in the investigation and then got on the radar of intelligence authorities in Switzerland. Right. Now, of course, if you're a Chinese agent under diplomatic cover, then you can't be arrested. All they can do is make you persona non grata and ask you to leave the country. Yeah. But Craig no longer working for the United Nations, as you said, would not be under similar cover and so they could easily have picked him up. Presumably yes, but it is actually extremely unusual for

Switzerland to detain anyone on espionage charges. Right. When was the last time this happened? So the last prominent case was 1998. Wow. Okay. This involved a Mossad agent for Israel who was plotting to do some illegal activities in Switzerland.

So that really shows how rare this is. And we are still a bit puzzled with why Switzerland decided to crack down so hard this time, because according to our information, crack has been in detention now for many months. Well, yeah. So since mid-, that's, uh, we're almost coming up on the five month point now, and, uh, I think as I've heard through other sources, normally in Switzerland, you can detain somebody for questioning for a three month period. And then after that, you have to go before a judge and say, we have reason to believe there's more we need another, we need an extension. Correct.

And experts tell me that, um, the fact that his detention has already been extended once actually shows that the case that the prosecutors might have quite a lot of evidence because it's hard apparently to convince the judge in Switzerland to extend detention. But again, we don't know for which country Craig allegedly spied for at this point. We all we know is that in 2021 intelligence agents surveilled him and found out that he was interacting with Chinese spies. Right. Now, I mean, there's so many different angles here, but Geneva, it's home to a lot of international bodies and you've got a lot of foreign diplomats there. Similarly, just next door in Austria, you've got Vienna, which is, you know, since the Cold War known as a den of spies from both sides of the Cold War coming together.

So it's not unusual to find agents roaming around those two countries who are neutral. So it's kind of, yeah, it is a bit unusual to see Switzerland coming down so hard on this and also being so secretive about it, right? I mean, he was, we're almost five months into Craig's detention before you and Der Spiegel and Tamedia broke this story. And that took almost five months.

The Swiss did not volunteer any of this information. I hate to say it, but it almost sounds like what you would expect in an undemocratic state. Yes. Well, of course, Switzerland is also known for its very firm privacy regulations, so that also plays part. And the Canadian government as well did not release anything beyond a statement, a very brief statement in which they told us that they are aware of the detention of a Canadian. Right, without saying who.

Without saying who and without saying why this person is being detained. All that we got from public records are court documents that have been heavily redacted. And that's how we know that at least the suspicions, I must say, are military, economic, and political espionage. Right. So those are three separate categories. Yes. Okay. Which could be, I mean, I'm just guessing, but under some sort of criminal code it could lead to three separate charges, perhaps, if they're divided up like that. I am not sure about the Swiss legal system. I learned

through reporting this story that it is actually quite a complicated system, but from what I understand, also based on liaising with my Swiss reporting partners, is that if Craig is charged and convicted, he could face up to three years in prison, which international standards is not that long when it comes to espionage. And I wonder if they would take his time in pretrial detention into account, you know, sort of give a six-month discount on that or something like that. Yeah. Well, okay, so we may find out in the next month or so

what the Swiss will do, whether they'll charge him or continue that period of detention or give up the whole thing, let him go. Yes, and there's so many question marks in this case. And as I said before, he's not been charged yet, to our knowledge. He's just in detention on these suspicions. But we did feel the need to report on this case because we know that a lot of people

who work on North Korea have interacted with Craig. Yes, myself included. Yes. And so we did feel that it's also our journalistic responsibility to inform the general public that this case is happening so that people can also make their own judgment, at least on what information they might've shared. Right. And write it in emails, chats and phone calls and whatnot.

Yeah. Yes. So this is, this is the reason why we decided to report on it, but Craig has not been charged. He's not been convicted. He is in detention, which is highly unusual in Switzerland. And that's the current situation. Sure.

Has any thoughts or comments? Honestly, at this point, uh, I would defer to Yvonne's investigation, but I think best to wait and watch and see what comes out of it. Yeah. It does come in the context of, um, well, we got the Sumi Terry case in the United States where, where she's, uh, we got the Sumi Terry case in the United States where she's now being charged, but the trial hasn't happened yet. And then here in South Korea, we've got a spying scandal as well, or at least some allegations there. For listeners, I would

recommend if you want to know more about the South Korean case, go and listen to our sister podcast, the Korea Pro podcast episode 31, which was uploaded on July 26 with John Lee and Jong-Win Kim. And you'll find out more about that. And if you're interested in knowing more about the Sumitari case, you can go back and listen to my previous episodes on that one. It is a grim case to keep following and keep us updated on that one, Yifan. Thank you very much to you and to Shreyas for coming on the podcast today. Yeah.

Thank you for much to you and to Shreyas for coming on the podcast today. Yeah, thank you for having me. Navigating the dynamics of the Korean Peninsula requires more than just information. It demands insight. Korea Risk Group offers strategic consulting that cuts through the noise. Our experts provide in-depth analysis, risk assessments and bespoke reports, all tailored to your specific needs. Whether you're exploring new opportunities or managing existing challenges, our insights can be your compass. To learn more about how we can help you make informed strategic decisions, visit careerrisk.com slash solutions today. And to our post-recording, producer genius, Gabby Magnuson, who cuts out all the extraneous noises, awkward silences, bodily functions, and fixes the audio levels.

Thank you, and listen again next time.