North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Year-end special: A look back at the most compelling North Korea stories of 2025

Episode Date: December 25, 2025

2025 was packed with news from the Korean Peninsula: new presidents assumed office in South Korea and the United States, North Korea expanded its cooperation with Russia and Pyongyang finally opened its long-awaited beach resort. In this special year-end episode, the NK News team joins the podcast to revisit their most compelling stories of the […]

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This is for the second last episode of the year. This is the Christmas Day episode. And so we're doing a year in review, and I'm talking to all of my journalist colleagues at NK News and NKPro in ones and twos and sometimes threes, perhaps, to talk about their favorite. story or stories of the year. And so we're starting off. We're kicking this one off with Anton and Junha.

Welcome, gentlemen, on the podcast. Thanks for having us. Hello, Jekko. And let's start with you, Anton, what was your, the story that really sticks with you this year? So, well, of course, after covering Russia DPRK exchanges for several years now and especially the past year, there's been so many things. And it's very hard to zooming on one particular. thing. There has been lots of developments, the North Korean troop deployment, the additional

troop deployments of the miners, the death of the Russian ambassador to North Korea, you pick it. But actually, I wanted to focus on a few stories that received some attention, but they also paint a broader picture of North Korea's reached in terms of nuclear capabilities. In one particular story I wanted to bring up is the story about a Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation, Rosatom, actually seeking to deliver a highly radioactive isotope to North Korea. This element is called Cobalt 60.

What's it used for? So here's a thing. You can use it for whatever you want. You can even make a dirty bomb. While it is unlikely that that was the purpose of that particular shipment that Rosatom was preparing for, we should state that it is possible to use it for... There's still potential.

But it has a highly high potential of being used for weapons. But most likely it was used actually for medical purposes. Because usually it's used for x-ray. So taking x-ray scans. And, well, just needless to remind you, right, that we had the one high-profile cancer patient in North Korea that passed away this year, right? Kim Jong-nam.

All right. And that makes a lot of sense. why North Korea is focusing on this. A lot of the caters, high-profile cadres are aging. North Korea is now trying to revamp its health care system. They're focusing on introducing new hospitals, stuffing it with new equipment.

There we go. And why this story sticks with me. And when did it break, by the way? So, yeah, that's the thing. We are not certain whether the delivery actually has taken place, but we know that Rosatom was looking to do it. And actually, this corporation, websites still list this particular government procurement bid on their website.

So you can actually go there and see that they are not hiding. They are saying that, yes, we are planning to deliver it somewhere between April 2025 and December 2020. Big window. Yeah, hence. I imagine it's a sanctioned item. No, unlikely. Unlikely. They probably would have to notify the atomic energy watchdog and make sure that this delivery is connected.

but if it's for medical purposes, it's likely excluded from the sanctions. However, it still highlights how North Korea can access these sensitive materials and Russia is ready to provide those. Still, I mean, it does sound like the ultimate dual-use item, right? I mean, as you said, it can be used for treatment or diagnostics of cancer, but it can also be used in a weapon. So it does sound like something dual-use. I'm surprised that it's not explicitly sanctioned.

But it's interesting to see that this delivery was advertised and may actually have gone ahead. Right. And you still can check it on their website. No one's hiding. Though the operation, of course, is a little bit murky because the rose item is not the one that is going to carry out the order. So the delivery, so they had to subcontract another firm. And, of course, it's a bit of a clandestine operation. What was the quantity we're talking about? And is it something you could just stick on a plane or does it require very special shipping? So that's a thing. It does require a special container. It's not a very simple thing to deliver.

And a firm that is up to the task is supposed to have certain clearance. Of course, it must have the certificates that clear it for handling very hazardous and radioactive goods, basically. And, well, we know that it was supposed to be delivered from Vladivostok to Pyongyang Airport. But, well, we don't know whether it happened. It's still out there. It's just another dimension showing how closely the Russian and North Korea are, are collaborating right now. Juna, any questions or comments? Mainly was, are there any signs that these, well, cobalt 60 has been used for other purposes in X-ray that you've noticed so far?

So for cancer treatment, they do use it. Hypothetically, that's the worst nightmare of experts and nuclear scientists that someone would use it in a dirty bomb. It is possible. At the same time, we know from certain researchers, we know that Cobalt 60 was actually available at one of Pyongyang hospitals. I don't remember when, but in the 80s, they already had this. And because this radioactive element has a very short lifespan, it means that they are desperately looking for replenishing their stocks. Right, so you've always got to get new stuff.

Now, of course, back in the 1980s, Russia was, or the Soviet Union was interested only in helping North Korea with material for peaceful nuclear use, nuclear reactors and for medical treatment. Things are a bit more ambiguous now, though, aren't they? Exactly. So that is why I'm bringing it up, actually. That's why it gains, well, it merits certain attention. Because now Russia is training a North Korean geologists in uranium facilities, right? Uranium mining facilities. There's multiple exchanges between Russia and North Korea in terms of nuclear science with North Korean academics visiting Russian nuclear research centers being showed to training nuclear reactors. And of course, well, that is something that we know from state media, from official press releases. But imagine how much stuff there's going on that goes below the radar.

How did you stumble across this story? Oh, well, magicians don't reveal their terms. trick, so I will sit out with start on this one. Fair, fair. Thank you, Anton, the magician. Yeah, okay. Juno, what's your big story that really sticks with you this year? Well, it was quite a historical piece.

It was 15 years since the sinking of the Rockas Chanan this year. It was in March. March of 2010. Yeah, 2010. That's when 46 sailors were killed, as one of the deadliest inter-Korean incidents at the NL since the Korean War. What's known right now is that a North Korean torpedo, presumably fired from a North Korean submarine. Underwater submarine sunk the Raqas Chonan and the Yellow Sea. So the interview that I had with the former captain of the Rock Has Chonan.

Because he survived. Yes. So he survived with a couple of other of his sailors. So he was very reluctant to do the interview at first just because of the fact that the issue is still very much politicized domestically. What's the politics around it? Well, there's been a lot of disagreements and discourse in the political spectra here regarding the causes of the Raqas Tuanan. Yes, I remember at the time that a lot of people in South Korea's progressive political camp

were reluctant to accept the results of the International Fact-Finding Commission that found that it was North Korea behind this. Exactly. So, you know, as I mentioned before, it's already been internationally determined that it was a North Korean torpedo, But of course, as you mentioned, progressive factions within the current Korean political spectra have been very skeptical since it was an incident that happened under a conservative administration, under the Imeng Bak administration. But of course, that politicization does in turn affect the trauma that is still carried on, the PTSD that's still carried on with the victims of this attack. and also the sort of guilt that they feel that their comrades died, but they did not die. So what the captain was telling me was that this issue has, there was a lot of long-term support,

but that has very much faded, especially with the entrance of progressive administrations, such as the Moon administration, such as the Lee administration now. But of course, you know, I think that he really does criticize the entire political spectrum for using the Cheonan incident for their own political gain, which was quite interesting. The other things that I found quite interesting was that he was commenting a lot on South Korea's improved naval strategy or what he deemed to be. So there are improved anti-submarine warfare tactics as South Korea currently employs. Presumably, these are lessons learned from 2010?

Indeed. So what we've seen is that not just from the Cheonan incident, but a plethora of cases that happened from North Korean provocations towards the Yompeong Island. Which was in, the shelling was in November the same year 2010. Exactly. So, and then even before 2010, you also had naval incidents at the Techong Islands in 2009. That's when I think South Korea's military strategists really knew that North Korea would go into any other attack without incentive.

So what they were basically trying to do is with those North Korean attacks, the Rock Navy is now much more strategically advanced than it was in 2010, of course, as would any other military be from 2010 to 2025, with a 15-year gap. But what he was saying was that there is a lot of improved ASW capabilities, anti-submarine warfare capabilities. So long-range detection missiles, low-frequency sonars within South Korea's own submarines, but also Aegis warships, and also the helicopters and the Poseidon patrol aircraft that's currently under the Navy's jurisdiction.

So what he was saying was that there needs to be a shift towards a much more quieter electric propulsion within South Korea's underwater assets and also much more advanced Aegis systems to make sure that South Korea still gains the upper hand in North Korea's arguably larger submarine count than South Korea's underwater capabilities. Was your interview with the former captain of the Chonan conducted before or after the election of I. Jiaming as president? So it's before the election of I Jiaming is also before the impeachment, seeing as March 26 does fall before April 4th. But basically what he was saying was that there was also quite a few comments regarding the political trust of the military and regaining political neutrality of the military as well. So there was a lot of distance that he wanted to sort of.

put to the fore where he wanted to distance himself from the idea of politicizing any sort of event like Rockas Chenan or the Yonpyeong Island attack that the progressive administration or the progressive

some members of the progressive camp have been tamed to do so I think that the what the main takeaway and the closing message that he gave which I think resonates with the sort of

Patriots affairs here and the Veterans Affairs is that he wants us to remember that there were ordinary sailors who were just doing a patrol in the Yellow Sea when they were attacked by a torpedo and that a stronger defense posture is needed for the Rock Navy in order to prevent incidents like this happening again. Any comments or questions from you, Anton? Oh yeah, actually, I have a question. You mentioned that the progressive administrations were sort of compelled to sort of

keep it quiet on the incident and in a book maybe you know this book it's by Professor Brian Meyer Saram Padjimuton in Kunghavu he mentions that when the Yun Pando incident, Shaling incident and the Chonan happened

while the public reaction was somewhat subdued in South Korea and he brings up the comparison to other countries and hypothetically if it happened in other countries people would probably be super outraged by the incident whereas we didn't have that much reaction

and it was quickly swept under the rug by the media as well. Do you agree with that? And what do you think the reason was? I think the thing that was really interesting in the Chenan captain or the former Chenan captain interview was that he wasn't just criticizing progressive politicians. He was also criticizing the Yemeng Bak administration at the time

because what happened right after the Chenan incident, right after the sailors were taken out of the water or taken off the sinking warship, or the Corvette, they were taken to these hospital facilities, and then afterwards, still dressed in hospital garb, they were basically put into a public press conference in front of the local media, where cameras were all taking pictures of the captain in his military gear, in his military uniform sitting in the middle,

while he was flanked on both sides by these sailors who were 19, 20 years, of age, and in hospital garb, you know, which is a very visual sort of humiliation as what he was saying was that it was a humiliation for him and his sailors. And that image really did resonate with the crowd as seeing that these guys are not survivors of an incident, but instead there are people who survived while their comrades died. So they're seeing them as pepeza, so defeat the defeated. No, the heroes. no so and the media and the administration and that image still did resonate and it still

is a comeuppance of trauma for many of these individuals involved including the former captain so it is what mr meyers was saying in his book too you know it there is a certain level of truth to it that says that the media the administration at the time and also the public there was not as much support that was required in terms of emotional support, in terms of support for these individuals domestically. You know, international support was broad, but domestically, especially led by the politicians and the media, it was something that the captain was very,

he was very ashamed to recall those memories. Interesting. My last question to you is I wonder if there were an opinion poll done tomorrow whether people believe that the Chonan was sunk by a North Korean torpedo or some other cause. Do you think that there'd still be this wide level of disbelief as there was in 2010? I don't think it'd be as wide, but I think that it would be fair to predict that there would be a certain percentage that's not as substantial as before, but still lingering. No.

But I'd like to place the hope that the majority of the South Korean electorate and the South Korean public will be still viewing and coinciding and aligning with the international assessment that it was a North Korean torpedo that sunk the Rockas Chanan. Okay. Well, that's where we'll leave it there today. Thank you for bringing to us two very important stories. And then I will swap you out with some other colleagues that I'll interview next time. Thanks, guys. Thanks for having us. See you next year. All right, this is part two of the year in review, and we are now on Monday the 22nd of December, and I'm joined here in the studio by Chatter, Carol, and Jong Min Kim. Welcome back on the show, both of you.

Hi there. Thanks for having me. And let's start with Jong Min. You've got two stories that are linked, both about the new, still new, President Lee. I mean, he's only been six months in office. So what's the story there that really sticks with you for the year? Right. It's basically not a single story, but it's a string.

of a theme. Lee basically is a very particular type of a progressive leader that was elected this year. I can't believe election was this year. After impeachment, which was also this year, and he did a right pivoting right. And then my question when he started was, will it stick? And it did. And did North Korea like it? No. It's basically the theme that I covered throughout the year. Did you see this coming at the time, did you say, oh, you'll probably go a little bit rightward, and did he go further right than you imagined, even if he did see it? Specify at the time. Okay, all right.

Let's say before June 4th, when he was elected. Well, in the buildup against, in the buildup until June, it was pretty clear that he was working on looking more centrist and even conservative in certain policies, especially, you know, econ, you know, Chebel, business-related stuff. But when it comes to North Korea as well, he did not really mention it all that much during the build-up,

during the election campaign. And then once he was elected, he did include North Korea into the acceptance speech, but he framed it along the lines of not really focusing on unification and like we're compared charts and we have to unify,

but more along the lines of we have to make sure that there's no clash and peaceful coexistence, which sort of, overall, it stuck until the end of year. Yeah, so no one's going to call this policy so far a rehash of the old Sunshine policy of Kim De Jong and Norma Hion, right? Partly. Partly.

Tell us which parts are a rehash. I think because that era gurus, policy gurus, are somewhat hired into the part of the cabinet, like Zhang Dongyang, the current unification minister. He has returned from being away for a very, very long time. Yeah. So you can see signs, like little hints of those languages staying, but not specifically about North Korea because the North Korea threat environment and just relationships changed a lot. But when it comes to U.S. related inter-Korea relations, that language still stays. Like when it comes to op-con reclaiming or transfer, you can still see a little signs of how the Sunshine Policy era ideology still is staying, but not from Lee himself all that much. Would people who are nostalgic about the Mung Jain era, would they be happy with Ije Myeong's current policies?

I would say, sapsop pay a little bit. I'm not sure how to translate that. That was a debate earlier in the office, maybe a bit hurt or betrayed a little bit. But also, they are not the strongest voice public sentiment-wise right now. So I think they still have a bit of patient to stay, you know, support President Lee's initiative, which is basically pursued denuclearization on paper. He does say that in the policy initiative, but he doesn't really push for it,

basically letting Trump do his thing. And it looks like the progressives are largely okay with that because they understand the environment. North Korea does not want to talk with South Korea. Right. And installing Jong-Dong-Yong as his unification minister, which he was under Normandy on 20 years ago, Was that a sop to the base?

Was that to sort of appease the progressive base of the IGM Yong camp? Because it does seem that John Dong Yong is prepared to go out further over the skis than anybody else in the government is. I think it's two things. One is to balance out the language that is coming from the cabinet. If it's just the National Security Advisor Wiesong Nag and Johean, the foreign minister, all like very modern, contemporary centrist types, like real politic types. The progressive base might not be too happy. So balancing it out with these people might be one calculation.

Another part might be philosophical as well. Although Lee is apparently trying very hard to look centrist, he is a guy who used to say he wants to become South Korea's Bernie Sanders in the past. He used to be the Kyeonggi province leader who was really, really serious about inter-Korean economic cooperation. So although he's not really working on it right now and he knows that it will bite him in the back if he pursues it right now too much, I think having someone like the NIS chief, I Zhongsoc,

and also the unification minister, it's like a good backup in case something happens and he needs to move quickly. And how's North Korea been, since you wrote these stories back in June and August, how's North Caribbean responding? They don't, they hate it, but they, I think it sort of feeds into their calculation

that Lee, one, is someone fundamentally quite similar to uniform from their perspective. perspective, calculation-wise, not as provocative as Yun was. But when it comes to understanding that being largely aligned with U.S. is South Korea's interest, I think that's what Lee is really going for, maybe involuntarily because of all the economic coercions. But North Korea understands that Lee is not a type of guy who would really go against the U.S. too much. Right. So they're not going to be able to push him around? Yeah, no. And also, Lee does not like the optics of being pushed around. So I think they know that North Korea cannot really, really easily get something out of him.

And also it's his political weak spot, like China and North Korea related stereotypes that he used to have. And also, North Korea also understands just realistically, South Korea does not really have much to gift to North Korea that North Korea wants, which is, you know, nuclear recognition and stuff. Like, what can South Korea really do about that? Nothing. But it's interesting, isn't it, that like they, when Lee did turn off the loudspeakers, the North Koreans did follow up. They did reciprocate. And both careers, I was at the border last Wednesday, and we tried listening to radio,

and there's just nothing coming in from North Korea whatsoever. And there's nothing going to... Does that suggest that North Korea is not sending or that South Korea is effective at blocking, jamming? I don't know, because usually when you're driving around up there, you can hear, like, the radio coming on briefly, but last week there was just, like, nothing. And we tried, like, pretty much every frequency that we could. So I don't know. It's interesting that while, on the one hand, practically, they're, like, rejecting South Korea's advice.

they're also reflecting some of them. I have a fear about that. I think it's just that they just don't want to be bothered by two fronts. I think they are very much focused on observing what's going on between U.S. Ukraine and Russia. And meanwhile, standing like very friendly and true to the mutual defense agreement that they did with Russia, actual troops getting there and trying to talk to the domestic public, like how this happened and why this happened. and then having a variable on the inter-Korean border that just not makes much calculative sense to North Korea.

So I think they are also just trying to prevent anything crazy from happening. It's not in their interest. It's just focusing on what they're focusing on. I think so. Yeah, okay. Now, Chad, what's been the story that sticks with you into the next year from this year? Well, it's one that we actually did a prediction about at the start of the year, which was about whether or not tourism would restart in a meaningful way

because what was your prediction we predicted that there would be you you predicted I predicted that the marathon would be ticketed and that they would be welcoming guests and then they would cancel it at the last minute now that didn't happen marathon went ahead and we know our Dutch friend bart was there and I talked to him on the podcast about it yeah but the the overall trend of canceling short notice they did do that. So do you remember, Rasselon briefly reopened for a bit? And then they had two trips to Rasson and they said, no more. And there were people scheduled to go. Exactly. So, and then there were, there were the two trade fairs, I think, in spring and autumn. And the same thing happened. Well, no, autumn went ahead, but it just, the Westerners were

not invited, right? With the exception of a Swiss person and a few other people. Yeah, but for, I think it was young pioneer toys did sell a lot of tickets for that, like a business delegation to go to the trade fair. And then that all got thrown upside down, basically. So while the prediction was not, like, spot on, the general gist of it was correct. So you feel justified and... I was wrong for the right reasons, as they say. Oh, so classic.

Is that what Tony Blair said after Iraq invasion? Yeah, he did. He doubled out on that. Don't do. Did you expect TikTokers becoming a variable? No, that's been a huge part of it, I think. The TikTokers... A huge part of, you think, of North Korea not opening its borders to more Western tourism.

Is that what do you think? Yeah, because these people are hard to control. Influences. Yeah, they have very large audiences, much larger, to be quite honest, than many of us journalists. And some of the, like, recordings that were going out, we're like talking about how North Koreans use human excrement to work as fertilizer. And it wasn't really a very, you know, positive, I'd say, impression. But what's weird, though, is the Pyongyang Marathon ostensibly is going ahead for spring now, April, to be clear. And they seem to be okay with 500 foreigners coming.

And I was just talking to someone about this a little earlier. And like, why are they okay with that? But then the regular tours are not happening. It is a mystery, isn't it? Interesting. But then the other thing is, so I've spoke to quite a lot of visitors who have been this year. And a couple of interesting things came up. One is that the same guides are working with the same, with different groups that come in.

So it's a very small pool of guides that are. You mean the KITC guides from the North Korean South? Yeah, but so there's that. And then the other thing that a couple of friends mentioned is that a lot of those guides from KITC and other agencies have just literally all moved on in their lives. They've been a long time. They've been reassigned to state own enterprises, factories. And so there's like a real absence of tour guides.

in North Korea. So yeah, I think it raises big questions about what happens next year. Are we going to see a renewal of tourism or is it just going to continue to be very low number of delegations with Westerners for things like friendship groups, etc. So are you leaving that as an open-ended question or would you like to make a new prediction for 2026, Chad? We are going to be doing predictions soon. I don't think I'm going to be doing a tourism once. I can have a stab right now. Yeah, just do it right now. I would say probably we're going to continue to see just limited groups go in

and no resumption of actual tourism where the likes of Koryo tours, YPT can just take regular bookings for itineries. Just going beyond that, how do you feel about the likelihood of further opening of Western embassies and UN and other NGOs in North Korea? Yeah, so UK and Germany are two embassies which have still not reopened from the European Union and, well, Brexit, former EU. I think both for different reasons there, right? I think one of them is chosen not to right now

and one of them is being told you can't come right now. Yeah, so there's that. And then the UN, there was meant to be a, I wrote a story about this quite recently about an international maritime organization delegation to Pyongyang plus UNICEF and WHO. And from what I understand, the IMO one went ahead, but the UNICEF, WHO one got pushed back to January.

and one source told me he believes the North Koreans is just doing the bare minimum to keep the UN hopeful that a resumption could be possible but probably is not going to happen. I think the key thing to think about here is that since the pandemic, while we have had some access resumed to Pyongyang and there are embassies reactive there,

probably like 95% of the North Korean geographical landmass has had basically no foreign visit or travel for over five years now. Well, in fact, four weeks from today, it'll be six years since North Korea shut the gates. Yeah. So that's like a large, you know, who knows what the conditions are like in many of these places?

And I think probably that's part of the reticence on the North Korean side to not want to have tourists and NGO workers and UN workers, you know, gallivanting around the country and seeing what living conditions are like. Chongwin, what's your take? What do you think? Is this, I mean, is this an important? important story? Is it significant that foreign tourists haven't been allowed in the ways that they

used to be? There were always small numbers anyway. Right. Small numbers and also it was like, you know, on and off from time to time depending on the tension level, but I think something fundamentally changed recently from North Korean perspective since COVID. It's like a long-haul rethinking of what foreigners mean for Pyongyang. I think that fundamentally changed a lot after experiencing not many foreigners in Pyongyang and then being okay with it and actually realizing, oh, there might be actually good things coming out of it, which is better for their security, no leagues, you know, less risks. And I think because of that, the story is important, but not like little news developments

and like who goes in or not, but more like why is Pyongyang doing this? What's the calculation? I think that part is new. And one recent visitor, sorry to interrupt. told us that he believes one of the key concerns is knowledge about South Korea proliferating through foreign tourists. And in particular, one of the issues with the Chinese tourists is that if you have Chozenjoic tourists, ethnic Koreans from China, going in, they are much more likely to be able to talk Korean and share, you know, pretty full detail about what it's like.

We've even heard that some of the students there now, like at Kim Il-Sung University, for them to foreign students yeah for them to move around the city has become a lot lot harder than it was before so all in all

it sounds like there is just a lot of concern about knowledge coming in and another thing that that would explain why in the North Korean restaurants in China

that South Koreans are regularly turned away while you know foreign folk who live in South Korea they're allowed to come in but their Korean companions are told you've got to

You know, hit the road, Jack. You can't stay. Yeah. And then the other thing that I think reflects this issue is several visitors have told me recently that when they've been in Pyongyang, they've been quite surprised at how much South Korean-style language they're hearing from just general people-like population, which suggests somehow that despite all of this pressure from the government to limit South Korean influence and Pyongyang language to promote that in particular, it doesn't seem to be working. So maybe the government in North Korea is facing a kind of difficult situation with trying to control that influence and these foreign tourists and delegations

sort of feed into that. Yeah, wow. Okay, that is very interesting. Thank you very much for joining me on the year and review. We'll see you again soon. Thank you. Happy old days. And we're back with three more colleagues around the table to talk about their most memorable stories of the year and I'm joined by Juhon, Colin and Shreos. Welcome. Hello. Hello. Hello. Okay. Let's see. Let's start with Shreos. Your story of the year, the one that sticks with you the most. The one you've selected is about a big heist and then the aftermath of the heist. So tell us the story. Yeah. So North Korea has very much emerged as the world's biggest crypto thief in recent years. and it's become a big part of how the regime funds its weapons development.

Hang on, so he said it's the bigger. So it's bigger than any country and even any organized crime outfit. It is the largest single actor in heists. Indeed, year after year, it is, when it comes to cryptocurrency theft, when it comes to virtual theft, North Korea has been number one for many years now. And this year, it went and chattered its own records, not just over the course of the year, but in one single heist. It went when North Korea's Lazarus Group went to stole $1.5 billion, that's billion with a B,

from the Dubai-based exchange by bit. Before that. And they actually managed to get it out, because I remember that they stole a billion dollars from the Bank of Bangladesh but couldn't get it all. Yeah. But this time they got it all. Yeah. And I think they've increasingly realized in recent years that targeting these cryptocurrency exchanges

and other crypto services is a much better option than just targeting large, centralized banks that have much, much more rigorous security procedures. When it comes to cryptocurrency, they essentially manage to make use of their proven social engineering skills, which they use in a lot of other cyber campaigns, their fishing campaigns, for example, but they leverage it to gain access to cryptocurrency services networks, and when the opportunity arises, they just strike and withdraw as much money as they can get. Does anyone here in this room own any cryptocurrency of any sort? No.

No, okay. I don't own any, but if I did, after all these stories, I would keep any cryptocurrency that I had in a cold wallet. I think that's the right term, a cold wallet, one that's air-gapped from the network, so they can't be, can't be stolen? That would usually certainly be the best way to do it. Essentially, cold wallets are offline as opposed to the permanently internet-connected hot wallets, but in this case, that didn't really help. Because in the case of ByBit, what North Korea did was they managed to get access to a wallet, a cold wallet, that was connected to ByBit systems. It was actually a third-party wallet. They didn't even have to breach By-Bit itself.

Whoa. And so they managed to get access to that through their social engineering campaigns, just sending out fishing lures and everything. And then they waited weeks, perhaps months. just for waiting for an opening and then during a routine maintenance window during a brief gap when they actually thought we have a chance now to go for it

they went and made transferred Ethereum tokens worth about a billion and a half dollars in one fell swoop and Ethereum or from one wallet Well essentially they managed to use that to get access to by-bit systems and then transfer money out. Remarkable. God, it's a lot of money.

Now, for a long time I've been hearing, Shrey, is that the problem with stealing cryptocurrency is that although it's anonymous, it can be tracked and traced, and so it's not always easy for North Koreans to use that money. What's happening now? Well, that is often the case at the start

where you can track the initial funds, but North Koreans have become experts at essentially concealing the flow of stolen funds. They manage to put it through what a cryptocurrency mix, where those tokens mix with other currencies, or they manage to put it through decentralized exchanges, other services, where they can essentially conceal the sources and the destinations of the flows. And in that way, it makes it a lot harder for investigators to figure out where exactly the stolen funds have gone and keep track of them. So it has, and in this case, very quickly, as soon as they made the initial transfers, they went and made a series of other transfers to intermediate wallets, and then quickly started putting them through their favorite mixers, their favorite exchanges to throw people off and conceal the funds.

They're really skillful. is why have you chosen this as your story of the year, Traas? I think the big part was just the sheer impact of the attack. I mean, on that particular exchange or just on the crypto world in general? I think everything. The crypto exchange itself was big enough that they could survive. They've even managed to, they managed quite well since then. But I think it was a big wake-up call for the cryptocurrency industry.

Many people already knew that North Korea was the most prolific crypto thief. But it definitely extended beyond just the companies that were most likely to be affected because no one had ever seen a scale, a heist on the scale before. It wasn't just the biggest crypto heist ever. It was the biggest virtual heist of all time. Oh, my. And they're probably not stopping there, right? I'm going to guess that that number will be topped again next year.

Yeah, I mean, we certainly don't know if they'll be able to manage another heise, a single heist of the scale, but they don't really stop off that. from what we can make out judging by the estimates they've hit about estimates varied between different blockchain research firms

but multiple sources suggest that they've stolen over $2 billion in total this year now most of it was obviously from the bivet heist but they've clearly continued and they managed to keep laundering those funds more and more efficiently

after initially obscating them through the mixers They've then moved on to essentially putting them through a Chinese laundering machine that revolves around lots of over-the-counter brokers and underground finance networks. Juhon, Colin, any thoughts, any comments, any questions? Yeah, I think the impact that it has on North Korea domestically is something I think we should think about. And caveat that I don't have the evidence on hand, like directly linking this stuff, but just coincidentally or, you know, circumstantially, in North Korea, the kind of money that Kim Jong-un is spending on, say, the 20 times 10 factory project, where he promises to build factories in 20 towns every year for a decade.

All of this is Chinese machinery. It's very well-stocked, new, nice production lines. If you compare it to the kinds of, like, factories that they would open each year, usually in the past at the end of the year, It looks a lot more advanced, and what I'm saying is I'm guessing that Kim Jong-un can look at this $2 billion and be like, my project of pacifying the rural population, which has an income gap problem that he talks about openly, if I can kind of put some of these funds, earmark some of these funds, a small amount of these funds for all these factories, it looks like something he's probably doing. Yeah, and it's good that you mention that because the multilateral sanctions monitoring team, which an 11-Nation initiative that succeeded the former panel of experts,

assess that essentially cryptocurrency theft combined with North Korean weapons sales to Russia, at this point contribute more to North Korea's economy than anything they had, not just in recent years, but even before the sanctions that took effect in 2016-17. And so there is a very direct knock-on effect in terms of, as Colin mentioned, the leadership's priority projects, whether it's economic development, military development, or even their own personal slush funds. Extraordinary. All right. Juhan, what's your story of the year?

So mine is about North Korean defector who was working here as a truck driver, but he was blocked from entering the Blue House. was just trying to deliver construction materials. The Blue House, of course, is where President E.J.M. Yong now lives after former President Yun decided not to live there, but it's the presidential palace, the Blue House, top office. And I think Yijem Yong is getting back there soon. Oh, he's not there yet. Okay. So he'll be moving in soon. Right, right, right. Okay, so for what reason was this North Korean defect truck driver turned away?

So he was just supposed to deliver the construction materials, but, But his job was canceled just a day before the delivery. And the presidential security service did apologize, saying it was just an administrative mistake. So I guess one of their employees didn't really know that defectors were also rock citizens. But you've got to think about the process of this, right? First of all, how did they work out that he's a defector? and then somebody at some point made a decision, oh, he's a defector, can't let him in.

It sounds like a bit more than a simple administrative mistake, doesn't it? Yeah, it seems like there was something more than that. But the Presidential Security Service, they're just giving him a very short answer. It was just our mistake. Are they saying he could come again if he were to deliver those tiles one more time? They said, yeah, the defector status isn't really a security issue. Okay. Well, I mean, okay, why did you choose this as your story earlier?

Why does this stick with you? Because I saw his story from KBS, and then I got to meet this person. Oh, you interviewed him, okay. Yeah, I got his number from someone else, another defector, and it's really hard to, like, find a defector's number. Yeah. Yeah, security reasons. Yeah, I thought it was kind of cool. Has he experienced other forms of discrimination living here in South Korea?

Not really. So that was the one that really stuck out in his mind. He said he was a big fan of Korean dramas, and that's one of the reasons he came here. You mean when he lived in North Korea? When he left North Korea. He was watching Korean dramas illegally under North Korean law. Where's he from in North Korea? Is he from the border region?

From Hamgong province. Okay, so he's from up near the border. He got the Chinese TV around the... He was able to pick it up with, what, a satellite dish? I think so. Interesting, yeah. Well, look, hopefully if it is an administrative mistake, this kind of thing won't happen again.

Colin, Schrae, has any thoughts, any comments on that? I mean, honestly, I think the main thing is, even though we certainly heard from John about the incident to everything, always is going to ask why, like any of this happened. and it's curious because it doesn't seem like something that really benefits anyone, like to do something like this. So hopefully having stories like this, like shining a light on stories like this, at least make sure that potential discrimination is reduced or goes away. Well, does this fit into a pattern that we hear occasionally from North Queen Human Rights groups and from defector groups that when there is a progressive president, in the office, in the Blue House, that defectors suddenly have a worse time.

They face more discrimination, less assistance, and other things. Do you see that as part of a pattern, June? Yeah, when I saw Isaymong speaking with chats, I thought that was pretty obvious. You're talking about the forgotten South Korean prisoners who were held up in North Korea, right? Right, and among them there were some defectors, the ones who were repatriated to North Korea from China. So for you, this is definitely part of a pattern. Colin, any thoughts? No, okay.

We will go on now to Colin. What's your story of the year? I chose the expansion, construction of prisons in North Korea. So something that I found in satellite imagery and that I've covered across many stories this year, you can find on our website. And basically there's at least 10 prisons in North Korea where they're doing major or minor reconstruction,

probably seven or eight total reconstruction, and that includes one brand new prison that they're building. Uh-huh. From scratch. You can call these kiosho prisons, these kind of not considered political prisons. Like, it's not understood by and described by defectors as a place where they pull people away for their political beliefs

and throw them into a prison. It's not that kind, political stuff can get mixed up in this, especially these days, where there's an apparent crackdown on so-called anti-socialist crimes, anyone who's doing anything, which authorities perceive to be not contributing to the all-for-one, one-for-all socialist mentality and work ethic. And that could include watching a South Korean drama or speaking with South Korean vocabulary. Yeah, I mean, it can get quite nuanced, but I would say it potentially involves political something we can perceive as political crimes on the outside here.

But anyway, so this started in late 2023. It's continued throughout this year, so that's the last two years. And I think it says a lot about, I mean, you can interpret it in different ways. You can interpret it positively that it means Kim Jong-un wants to formalize his prison system. I think one very interesting thing was we could see they cut into the grass or bushes outside of the very large prison in Shinidu on the border with China. I forgot the slogan now, but some kind of slogan about, like, justice or, you know, the policing. So I think if you can kind of view it more in the Chinese style of, you know, oh, we will talk

about our crimes or we will admit that our population does crimes. And we're very stern about it because we're a strong socialist state. They're not doing this openly. They're not talking about any of this prison construction, by the way. In their internal media. Right. Or in media that we can see. It's all just discovered in satellite imagery.

Right. And are you able to say anything about sort of nationwide, what's the scale of the increase? Like, are we suddenly, have they doubled the capacity of the prisons nationwide? Yeah, I haven't quantified it exactly like that. But with a whole new prison, that's potentially thousands more. prisoners that can be held. That's just south of Pyongyang. And with the improvements at the other prisons, you could probably say it expands their capacity. So yeah, on the one hand, it makes the living conditions better where in the past people just die in these prisons because the conditions are so

dire. That's according to defector testimony. Some of it quite old. But on the other hand, it signals this attention from Kim Jong-un on wanting to crack down on what people are doing in the population. I think that it all all comes together, like what I talked about earlier, his focus on rural construction, his open talk about the gap, the wealth gap between Pyongyang and the rest of the country. I think he's really concerned about the population outside of Pyongyang. Think about it. They're seeing Pyongyang develop in a way that's maybe more than ever before. And propaganda shows it and they're like, people are like, oh, actually it's not just like a pipe dream. Pyongyang is developing actually pretty well right now, kind of like to the Chinese level, and we're not

seeing it. So he's really focused on the rural, and that means, you know, develop it with this 20 times 10 project, which I would have other comments on that I don't have time for right now, about whether it really is developing the rural areas, and crack down. And that means putting more people in prison potentially. So I think it's a big story, something to keep watching. We don't have all the details yet. We might see this kind of formalization of the prison system. in a Chinese fashion, maybe someday they'll start giving us crime statistics. I kind of doubt that, but I think something's going on here in which we're going to find out more in the next year.

Let me get some comments from Zhu Han and Treas. I was wondering if they could get executed just for watching K-dramas and stuff. From what I've heard, like, they've been changing a lot of the laws there. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't know exactly. I don't have that on my mind right now, the details of how those laws. work. I think there are misconceptions about how easily you can be executed for some of this stuff. I think re-education is a big part of their system. And that goes back to a few years ago

where Kim Jong-un like spotlighted these young wayward criminals and tried to send a message to the population that if you do something that's not revolutionary, like anti-state revolutionary, if you do something like, oh, I don't like the politics, I don't like the ideology, I'm going to go off my own way. I don't like going to, you know, do this volunteer work that you can get a second chance. He'll bring you back into his bosom, his big bosom, as he likes to call it. And you can get a second chance and basically it's just trying to encourage people to do good for the state. So maybe there's a philosophy there. If you give people a second chance, reeducation, you can get some, you can get some use out of these people later in life. I don't know. But I think executions are still a big part of

their system. We see those warnings during COVID. We know for a fact they threaten people with execution for things that you don't get executed for in most other countries. Here's a practical question for you, Colin. When you're looking at satellite imagery of a prison, are you able to identify what may appear to be execution facilities or a place where executions take place within a prison? No, not at all. And I haven't done that kind of detailed work. The kind of work that may be like HRNK or other Transitional justice working group where they really

I mean a lot of my work builds upon their work where they actually have used DeVector testimony to actually locate these prisons what I do is I go through the map and just check what's going on at this place

which other people have already identified and then I'm like oh wow look it's being totally rebuilt and that's the story that I wrote and even in those they'll be like maybe this is the or you know like the prison wards maybe this is a workshop but there's nothing I've never seen someone label a building

like, you know, executions. I mean, yeah. Shre has any thoughts? No, I think just one thing, perhaps, that I'd be curious about, but I think this may also be based on observation of other legal changes in North Korea. I'd be curious if there's a lot of this expansion and modernization, or at least expansion and strengthening of the prison system is, does it signify perhaps a lowering of thresholds on punishing individuals or is it more

about going to be about enforcing the restrictions that are already there? But I think that would probably feed into a lot of other. I don't know. Maybe it has to do with, yeah, improving the actual system. I mean, there's a lot of bribery in North Korea. Maybe Kim Jong-un wants a law to be a law and for people to know that that punishment is coming to them no matter what bribes they give. Maybe The whole prison system needs a revamp. I mean, he's been hanging out at the Boisong, boybu, whatever, do you want to call it? State Security Agency and the Ministry of Public Security, the police, he's been putting a lot of attention on those ministries. So I think we can assume some revisions are going on.

Great. Well, thank you all for joining me here on this review of stories for 2025. It's been a big year in North Korea news And of course, next year will be even bigger. So thank you all for coming on and we'll see you very soon. Thanks, Shackle. Thank you. Thank you.

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