The Jordan Harbinger Show - 527: Ulrich "The Mole" Larsen | Undercover in North Korea Part One

Episode Date: June 29, 2021

Ulrich "The Mole" Larsen (@UlrichTheMole) is a family man from Denmark who spent 10 years undercover in North Korea infiltrating its illicit arms trade. [This is part one of a two-part episode. Stay tuned for the second half later this week!] What We Discuss with Ulrich "The Mole" Larsen: How did a young Danish chef and family man wind up working undercover in North Korea to disrupt its illicit arms trade? Why would the repressive regime that runs North Korea trust a young Danish chef and welcome him with open arms? How some low-status Westerners cozy up to the North Korean regime for the chance to boss around other Westerners visiting the country and the illusionary rush of power it gives them. The natural qualities and easygoing talents that made Ulrich such an ideal mole in a place where every move is surveilled and analyzed by invisible eyes from every nook and shadow. Why operating clandestinely in the DPRK is no job for a teetotaler. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/527 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Start your free trial today. Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger Show. suddenly I saw Mr. Kang with my camera. And I was like, oh shit, he's going to check it out now. But he gave us to his colleague and said, you have to film Jim and Ulrich and the people here so Oula can bring it home to the people of Mr. James so they can see we had a great time in Northland. I was like, great.

Now they really trust me. And they took it many times from me filming me. And yeah, practically filming themselves doing crimes. Well, it's insane. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people. We have in-depth conversations with people at the top of their game, astronauts and entrepreneurs, spies and psychologists, even the occasional arms dealer, billionaire investor, or legendary Hollywood director. Each episode turns our guest's wisdom

into practical advice that you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better critical thinker. If you're new to the show or you're looking at you're looking for a handy way to tell your friends about it. We now have episode starter packs. These are collections of your favorite episodes organized by popular topics that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on this show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start to get started or to help somebody else get started. Of course we always appreciate that. Today, he spent 10 years undercover infiltrating North Korea's illicit arms trade along with some communist sympathizer groups. I'm not sure how much of an intro I need for this one. I mean, how much do I need?

to sell you guys on this story. Retired chef joins Communist Club in Denmark and eventually tricks North Korean arms dealers into offering him a shitload of illegal weapons and methamphetamine, and it only gets more insane from there. So if you liked my earlier episodes and stories about North Korea and my travels there, or if you're just like a wild tale here and there, I think you're probably going to get a kick out of this two-part series here with Ulrich the Mole. And if you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, and creators and undercover chefs every single week. It's because of my network. I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. No payment. I don't need your friggin' credit card

numbers. You guys wouldn't fall for that crap anyway, would you? By the way, most of the guests on the show, they subscribe to the course. They contribute to the course. Come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. Now here we go with Ulrich, the mole. Watching the film, I thought, okay, this guy's undercover in North Korea. He's using, like, stuff that you would use to make a movie If I were to go to a local shop and buy the stuff, and I'm thinking, man, if they pat you down, you are totally screwed. Like, you've got this battery pack strapped to your back. You've got this, like, elastic strap around you that they're going to feel that holds

the batteries and the microphones. You've got a wire going up your shirt. I mean, that must have made you nervous. I didn't brought that to North Korea, actually. I only did that when I was outside North Korea because I were quite aware if they find that kind of stuff on me, things could be quite dangerous. But I actually got a 4K camera with me. And I thought it was a bit too much to bring in North Korea the second time

where we did all the gun and weapons deals and stuff. But when I came to the airport, they opened my backs, of course. And then I got problems actually because the man there was like, oh, camera and a microphone and computer and hard drives. And I was like, well, I'm a friend of your country and, you know, try to blah. blah, blah, blah. And he'd insisted to speak with a high-ranking officer. But then Mr. Kang came to me, and he said, what's the problem? And I said, well, the camera and stuff. And he was, well, Orek, do you have your medal on and your bachelor's said, yes, of course. Show it to him.

And if I just opened my jacket, and the man was just like bowing for me, sorry, welcome to North Korea again, Mr. Larsen. So explain this a little bit. Mr. Kang is a tour guide. And we'll explain a little bit more about him because he turns out to not just be a tour guide. I've been to North Korea four times. I talk about it extensively on the show, so people who've heard those episodes, they know a little bit about how this works, but Mr. Kang, your tour guide meets you at the airport.

What's this medal that you have that made the guy kind of say, oh, oh, shoot, this is who I'm talking to? Let me back off. What kind of medal do you have? Well, I was there to the celebration in 2012 of the president Kim Il-sung, and at that time,

I brought a very small camera with me, telling them that I would like to film the Danish Association in North Korea. And after four or five days, Mr. Kang just loved me because I was honest to him, he felt, and I loved the leaders, and I bow correctly. And I did all the things I knew I had to do to be accepted. And after the celebration on the 15th of April 2012, six persons was asked to come with Mr. Kang and another official,

and we go to the parliament. And then we had the medals for, I can't remember what they told, but it was something like it was a friendship medal, of first degree because I respected the country and the leaders and I will do a lot of film for YouTube and stuff to tell the world how the real North Korea is. And, well, that was just lucky for me to be accepted for Mr. Kang that fast. And it really pays off when I came back because when they see a foreigner with a medal on, they know that this man is, or women, is good for our country.

So he just literally just backed up and said, welcome to North Korea and just close my suitcase again, very nice, and hand it over for me and gave me my jacket. That's really something else. I know some friends of mine have gotten those medals just from going on tours several times and being kind of in the right place at the right time and knowing, making friends with somebody at the bar and they're like, hey, you've been here a bunch, you're bringing tourists to the regime. That's good. That's money for us. Here's this metal. I don't know if it's the same as what you got. It might be like a little bit of a pat on the head version of what you've got compared to given what you've done. Although now,

Now I'm pretty sure they want that metal back, but we'll get into why that is in a second here. I don't go back with it myself, that's for sure. Well, no. I mean, they might come and take it from you, but we'll talk, we'll get to. I'll ask you about that. It's in the bank. It's in the bank. Okay.

Yeah, they can go get it from the bank. Yeah. Why infiltrate the North Korean arms trade in the first place? Like, yes, the North Korean regime is evil and needs to be exposed. In my opinion, I wonder if you share that. But what else? I mean, why do it all? Well, the long story short, it's that when I was a kid, my dad worked on the ferries who sailed from Denmark to Germany.

And sometimes he was with the ferry who goes to West Germany. And other days, he was sailing from another part of Denmark to East Germany. When we go to West Germany, I could practically walk down the ladder from the ferry and speak with the police and the German police. And they gave me a can of Coke or a hot dog or something. And, you know, I speak German. So it was quite easy for me to speak with them. But when we came to East Germany and I went with my dad of work, I was told by my dad and the staff on the ferry that please do not attempt to go down from this ferry

because they are communist. They will practically kidnap your shoot you, you know, try really to scare me not to go in because they have seen what happened to people who try to defect. And that really put something in me. And then on one of the trips back and forward, I met an East German boy and we changed addresses and start to writing each other. And then my dad said, well, we have to go and visit them if possible. And we could come to East Germany and visit them. And for me to see as a 11, 12, 13 years old, to see that regime, the Stasi and the whole East German commoner system, how the people

on the street, they didn't speak with each other. They just stood in a long queue to buy a piece of bread. In the supermarket, there could be four cans of beans or vegetables and practically nothing. And I really thought a lot about that. And then all the changes came in Germany and they were together again. Right. Reunification. Eastern West Germany rejoined. Yes. And then later on in my life, I just, as Boyga did the Red Chapel and I saw that. And it just kept me back to my childhood about a country that was separated because of a war. And I started to, you know, dig a bit in this. And I came up there. Actually, it was a Danish friendship Association supporting North Korea. And I find that really, really ridiculous. But when you haven't

met people, you can say they are ridiculous. So I started writing with the chairman Anders Christensen, and he invited me to an open meeting in the association. And at the same time, I wrote an email to Masbroker. Madsbrugger is the way you say it is proper. Madsbrugger is a director who directed the movie The Mole, but also another movie about North Korea, which is kind of like a satirical film. So when you saw his film The Red Chapel, you thought, wow, this kind of reminds me of East Germany and West Germany, how they were separated and how kind of oppressed East Germans were. So that's what got you interested.

You find this club, the KFA, Korean Friendship or Friends Association, which is like Danish fans, or it's all over the world, but it's in your local instance, your local chapter is Danish fans of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-un, the whole Kim Dynasty and North Korea, which is mind-blowing, right? Because you live in a very prosperous free country where people are not starving. You can't get in trouble really for political activities. And these are people that are probably like a lot of them are on social benefits like welfare. And they're going, oh, down with the tyranny of capitalism. Let's go to the socialist paradise that is North Korea where you can get shot for folding a freaking newspaper. To be with those people the first time, you know, it was really like I was

in a comedy movie because what they say and what I knew from, of course, what I studied myself, was so crazy that the best place on earth to live in is North Korea because the leader cares for you. He gives you food. He gives you clothes. He gives you work, school, education, everything. And I wrote then to Mass Brigger that I was very big fan of his movie, the first one, the Red Chapel. And Clyde Naiva wrote, if you any time consider doing a new movie about North Korea, I'll be glad to help you. And I got a long email back from him about North Korea and that he never wanted to and he never could go back. But he said, well, keep me posted from the meeting and let's see what happens.

And then I slowly started to participate in those meetings, learning the Danish people well. And actually after two meetings, they invited me to the board meetings. And later on, they want me to be a member of the board because I was so young compared to them. It's like plus 50, 60 years old at that point. and the youngest one at that point was 34, and then I came in 33 or something. They just shook me with open arms because you see, this is a young man,

he could literally take the future for us. Right. Just thinking back on all those things is crazy. It's cringy, right? It's cringy because you're like with these, and you can sort of see in the film, but I've also seen some KFA meeting footage from other places, and it really is kind of like,

I would imagine, I'm trying not to, I don't want to throw anybody into a negative stereotype here, but it's kind of like, You imagine these are the people that do hobbies where they stand outside and look at airplanes and then write down the number of the airplane. And they're doing that for like 10 hours a day, seven days a week or train spotting. Or they play lots and lots and lots of video games and never come out of their basement or get obsessed with cartoons, but they're 60 years old.

I mean, like things like that. And those are the people that you see at these meetings. Yeah. And many times we have to watch a movie, which the chairman got from Korea, when he's been traveling there for, I think, 40 times now. And every time he brings back still DVDs, back all cassettes. And there was a meeting where people can come and see how North Korea is, the propaganda way. And it was like three hours praising Kim Il-sung by what he did for the country.

The funniest part is that the chairman, under Christensen, he can sit for five hours watching things like this. I went to the movie with him, the cinema, as you're saying in English, to watch a film about North Korea. And at one point in the movie, you see from the Kimmel Song Square on a parade, he was sitting down. And then suddenly, in this parade, he was standing up, applauding and screaming and clapping in the cinema. Like, in his mind, I think at that point, he was back in North Korea.

And I was literally just looking up at him and, you know, start looking around him and just like, oh, my God. But that's how he is. If you ask him questions, which are for him the bad questions, he is. he is so clever to get around them and give you an answer you didn't expect it. Let's just tell say he's crazy. Yeah. This is the chairman of the Korean Friends Association in Denmark.

And he's just, if you've been to North Korea 40 times, you're either an awesome agent for Danish intelligence or you are so freaking brainwash that there's no coming back. And it sounds like it's a little bit of the latter, right? It's not the, yeah. Although who knows? Plot twist. Maybe he retires in 20 years and says, hey, by the way, you know. I think he's around 73 now, so I don't think he'll be here for 20 years.

Yeah, probably not. He will support that country until he dies. Why doesn't he move there? Did you ever ask him that? Hey, you love it. Move over there. Yeah, that's just a funny part because in 2012, when we were there to the celebration, he said to him, Mr. Christensen, I know you retire next year from your work.

If you want to, you can come here and live for free, and they told him many times that he was welcome and he retired. But he hadn't been moving yet, and I asked him once, why don't you move when you? it's possible for you. And then he said, well, I'm a product of Denmark, so I live in Denmark and know how to live in Denmark. And I was like, yeah, but you love North Korea. If I was you and I had this chance to finally live in my socialist paradise. Yeah.

Socialist paradise, yeah. Why stay in cold, expensive Denmark when you can move out and live like a king in North Korea? I think it's an action speak louder than words situation. I mean, I'm sure he's thought about it and then went, oh, well, I have internet when I'm there because I'm a special foreigner. No. Well, can I buy like a nice house, you know, and, you know, food? Where can I buy food and that's not state rations? You can't. Oh, well, how do I fly back and forth and visit people? You have to get a North Korean passport and then we tell you if you can ever leave again.

Exactly. Eh, Copenhagen doesn't seem so bad. I think I will stay there too. Yeah. But it's a big, great experience being there. At many points, it's a fantastic nature. Yeah, they do have some unspoiled nature. Yeah, it's very beautiful. And you can't have like two minutes on you own and you have somebody, hello, Mr. Larsen or Mr. Arbinger, we had to go on. Yeah, I remember plenty of times where I would be walking and I would, even just sort of like walking along a beach at a hotel, thinking, this is a beach, at a hotel, I'm not going to get in trouble.

And then I see guys out on the rocks fishing. And I go, I'll walk over there and I'll walk back. And before I get even remotely close, some guy comes out of the freaking forest and says, yeah, go back that way. And were you watching me the whole time? Where did you come from? Oh, some dude literally walking in the forest alongside me so that I don't see him thinking if he goes far enough, I'll tell him to turn back. That is the thing.

And I remember thinking there's no path through this forest. I walked up and around and there's no trail. This guy was just walking through like the bushes to see where I was going. Yeah, he's just calling for like a machine. Yeah, so freaking. I actually did the same. I stayed at Yangtok Dook Hotel. and I wanted to walk.

You know, there's a football field in the cinema building. This is the hotel that foreigners can stay in in Pyongyang. It's one of the few hotels. This is the best one to keep them isolated on the island in the river. Yes. Yeah, for those of you who are heard by North Korean episodes before, it's on an island in the river, so you can't just go off of it.

There's like one military or security checkpoint, so you can't just wander off. You're kind of on an Alcatrazzy, a hotel, hotel, but Alcatraz. And you can't get away from it. And if you swim, they probably also swim after you. Or they just shoot you and say that you fell in the water. Yeah.

The funny part, I think I walked around 200 meters and I haven't seen anybody following me. It was like my little own rebellion test. But then suddenly a lady I knew from the hotel came out in front of me, like she has been running around the building. And she was like, oh, are you here, Mr. Larsen? Well, let me follow you back to the hotel so we can have a beer or a cup of coffee. and okay let's go back right so but that changed when i had the medal i was a bit more able to walk free free yeah but i have seen how they treated journalists in north korea to you know really show them that we are the one in charge here and my favorite trick was seeing something interesting outside the window

of the bus and then running up and saying i have to go to the bathroom urgently right now and so does him and him and then everybody would get off the bus on the side of the highway and it's like how three of us are going to pretend to pee and the other guys are going to get their cameras out and wander around. And they were, eventually they were like, guys, if you want to take photos, just ask and stop to take photos. They liked us because we were pretty cool. But we wanted to like talk to the girls that were laying around picking flowers and they would like, they couldn't speak English. So they would like sort of laugh and flirt. And then some guy would come out from the village and yell at them and they would run away.

I mean, we had a lot of fun doing that. But it's the kind of fun that you have when you realize that you're in a human zoo, but you're the visitor and those are the zoo animals. So it's kind of, it's dark, right? It's a dark situation. It's really, I have many time questioned myself if I have been asking a North Korean citizens on the street a question to my guides and asked him a question and he asked her and they came back and translate. I don't think they ever asked them my questions because the answer I had back was we are so happy to live here and we are so proud that our president Kim Il-sung built this country for us and we will do whatever it takes for him and his family to have a healthy life. And when people ask me, how is it to go to North Korea? I say, well, it's quite difficult to describe because it's like your whole body is on overtime because you know you are being followed and you have maybe from the guy some silly, crazy questions.

And you need to think, what do I say and what do I do? How do I react to things? One of the most difficult questions I have was we went to the Mansu Hill and they revealed the two new bronze statues. So these are giant statues of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il that were unveiling. I don't know, in like 2013 or something like that after Kim Jong-il died? 2012. Yeah. Okay.

I was participating in that moment and Kim Jong-un came by in a great car. I don't know what brand was, but it was a very big limousine and people went practically, you know, freaking out. And after that we went to the bus and then one of the guys sat next to me and he said, Mr. Larsen, how do you feel? I said, well, I was surprised that the young successor was here tonight and it was a great firework and very beautiful. It just showed me how you love your leader. Oh, but Mr. Larsen, how do you feel in your heart? Oh, wow. That's interesting. Yeah. And then I said, I feel this

kind of, it's warm. I feel comfortable. For 10, maybe 15 minutes, he keeps asking me about my heart and my mind of this particular situation. And then finally, one of the, there was a young guy with age 22 of something. He could see what happens and he could see that I was starting to get bit, you know, go away or leave me alone or something. Yeah, uncomfortable. Can I ask you a question? I was like, I had nothing to hide, but it was just uncomfortable because it was my heart and my mind, my heart and my mind.

And do you feel the same in Denmark for your prime minister? And I was like, well, sometimes maybe and other times it's a finger up the air, you know. Yeah. And it's like, can you do that? Yeah. We can even make jokes with our leaders and our queen. And I knew the answer. And I said, do you never have like a teacher where you make funny stuff with your president or leaders?

And it was like, no. Yeah, no way. You know, if that happens, he probably got shot or killed or tortured or something or all the kind of things. You really have to be focused the whole time. And especially when I have a mission, it was ready not to do any harm to anybody. Do you think he wanted an honest answer? Like, do you think he was like, no, no, no, come on, come on, come on, just tell me the truth. Or do you think it was kind of like a trap?

I think it was like a trap to find out if I really was in the association and, you know, care for the country and maybe not even be a journalist or CIA agent because one of the things they have told me many times is we are very careful because the CIA would love to be in our country to place microphones or chips to put in buses to see where things are. They are really suspicious to everybody they don't know. and with Alejandro Cairo DeBen as the president for the International Friendship Association, he's the gatekeeper of North Korea, and he's really a mean person when he's in North Korea. You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, The Mole, Al Rick Larson. We'll be right back. And now, back to Al Rick Larson, the mole, on the Jordan Harbinger Show. I've met him in North Korea, and he was extremely rude, mean.

He deleted a bunch of people's pictures without permission. He just picked up their camera. memory cards away from people. And they're like, hey, what, come on. I just spent like three days taking photos of everything. There's nothing on there. You can look through it. And he would just delete everything and say, no, I'm the one who tells you what you can take photos of. Yeah. His name is Alejandro Caldebanos. This is the leader of the International Korean Friendship Association. So he's the chief weirdo, I guess, when it comes to these sorts of things. But he also runs tours in North Korea for, you know, in case you have no idea who

we're talking about, which is everyone listening right now. He has a very, he very much has this, in my opinion, a little man complex. He's a nobody in Spain or wherever he lives. He's a, I don't mean to be rude, but to give you sort of a picture of him, for those listening or watching, he's kind of just like a dork, you know, and he's just, he's a nerdy, dorky dude who doesn't have a lot going on. But when he's in North Korea, he's the cool foreign guy that is the chief of all of the international tourists that can come and go from North Korea. And he's got a bunch of medals for existing in a North Korean military uniform that he loves to sort of cosplay and put on and pretend like he's an important guy in North Korea. When my opinion, and I have no real facts for

this, is that North Korean military and other high-ranking officials probably look at him like the biggest dumbass that they can use and abuse. And he is just a toy for them to try and get money in recognition. I don't think he's important at all. I think that we can quite agree on that because it shows how he put me into the whole thing. And when I introduced Mr. James, he could literally smell the money in front of his nose. And I remember paying him for me and Mr. James, the price was like five times higher than I went the first time

where I arranged practically the whole thing by myself with the Danish Association. The tour was more expensive when you went with him than if you went with another company. Yeah. Yeah. Alejandro, and he's like, I should transfer him money and I should give money to the the North Koreans have money back with me and give to him. And as you said, in Spain, he's a zero. I visit him in Spain many times.

And there's approximately 100 people, I think, in Spain who look up to him as a father figure because they have come from lower, how do you say in English? Lower socioeconomic status. Yeah. And when they come to him, it's like he's very kind to them and, well, please, you can have a meal or please take a soda. on the water, come to our meetings, and then you're a good friend with Alejandro, and they really respect him.

It's like a cult or a gang. Yeah. Yeah. And when I started speaking with him, it came a lot to Spain to build up this friendship with him. The people from Spain who went to, was a part of the Korean Friendship Association. I could speak with Alejandro, like, I just say, hey, Alejandro, how are you? And they were like more, oh, Alejandro, nice meeting you.

And thank you for letting us come here today. Yes, sir. Please, sir. Thank you, sir. Yeah, that kind of thing. And I was like myself and they could see that he was speaking to me a lot. But that was, of course, because we had a mission, him and me, he fought as well. But to sit with him in the embassy in Madrid, then certainly one of the staff from them.

Is this the North Korean embassy in Madrid? North Korean embassy in Madrid. Yeah. And then suddenly official from the embassy take me in my shoulder and said, Mr. Larsen, you have to come with me. And when went to Alejandro, said, Alej, you have to come with me. The ambassador have to speak with you. And when they did that, Alejandro was like, oh, you know, he was really pushing his chest forward and like, when he walked, you know, big arms and looking around people. And I just walked with him and we came in and a locked door. When we came out from the room again, all the people attending in the meeting, they were just like staring at us like we were rock stars or something because Alejandro has a friend who can go with him into the ambassador and speak. And he comes to Spain many times. He had invited

Alejandro to Norway and Alejandro is in Spain. I don't know if you can say it's a comic figure. Yeah, a comic figure. In other words, nobody takes him seriously. He's not interesting or powerful or authoritative guy in Spain. But he's dangerous in North Korea. Very dangerous. We went to the secret camp in 2012 and the delegation from Denmark were one people from Finland attending because Finland could not do their own delegation. You know, they like delegation from this and this. Right. So he was invited to go with us and he went out to the toilet in a building and it was just a hole in the ground. And he took a picture and one of the Spanish, yeah, and one of the Spanish friends of Alejandro saw that and he was just, you know, running to Alejandro.

Hey, this man is taking picture and he's an enemy and blah, blah, blah, blah. And Alejandro, like a, you know, a soldier or just literally confronted him and said, why are you taking this picture and are you crazy? And he said, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, I come from Finland. 90% of our country is, you know, forest. And we have houses in the forest and we don't have water or electricity. This toilet was practically the same as in my house in the forest in Finland. So I just wanted to take it home to show that they had the same. And he had pictures on his camera. That's good thinking because, yeah, Alejandro's thinking you're trying to make North Korea look bad. And This guy's like, no, I'm just trying to show the similarities between North Korea and Finland.

Yeah. And it took like, I guess, an hour to discuss with him. And at that point, I didn't know Alejandro very well. So I just literally kept myself away. Yeah. It was like lighting up a rocket for New Year's Eve. He exploded Alejandro. And I knew he could do that because I have been seeing this film, The Friends of Kim, where he goes into, I think it's an Australian journalist.

and literally smash his cameras and hard drives and tapes, everything, all his notes. Even the North Korean stance, we don't do like this. This is Alejandro, we don't do like this. We're North Koreans, we are polite people. So that just shows when he comes there and he's been telling me the same thing. Urek, when we are in North Korea, we have to be strong and brutal because the North Korean are too polite to their visitors. But you know sarcasm, I know sarcasm.

So we need to be aware of this. And if we seize anything, we have to confront them so they can get punished. That's scary. There's one point in the mole where he says about the director, if he comes to North Korea, I'll smash his face and put him in the mine because they'll put him in a hard labor camp in a mine and he'll basically die working. We had a defector from North Korea who's a kid. My friend Charles Rue, he's not a kid anymore, he's 25, 26.

But he worked in a mine because he escaped North Korea, got caught by China and put back, and they put him in the mine. and he said it was pretty horrible, but he was homeless before. So he ended up taking a paid job in the mine, but he was like 14 drinking and smoking and working in a mine. And he said he wasn't the only kid in there. It's scary. It's terrifying.

I literally think if Alejandro really succeed with things like that, he will just be proud of himself because he removed an enemy of North Korea. But it's stupid to, you know, born raised in Spain and call yourself a North Korean. It's unhinged. It's so different from each other. It's unhinged and makes no sense. Now, I would ask why you, and I mean no offense by this, by the way, you and I are getting along great, but I have to say you are the perfect mole because you're a retired chef and if I had to

describe you for a police sketch, I don't think I could do it. I would say, they'd show me the police sketch and they'd show me the face of the bald guy with no hair and I'd say, yeah, that's him. And they'd say, no, we haven't added any features yet. We have to add features. And I'd say, no, you don't. You got them already. eyes, nose, mouth, no hair, that's it.

Like, you are the blank slate of the guy that they paint before. They say, all right, how do I add the distinguishing features? There are none. But again, I don't mean any offense by that. I just think it was great because nobody, you know, if you look at somebody like Mr. James, and we'll introduce him in a second, because I'm trying to be easy on the new characters. You know, he's this tall, gregarious guy with a beard and he's got tattoos and he's loud,

and he's like kind of a wild man. and you could describe that guy and people would go, I bet that's who they're talking about. But it's really easy for you to blend in in these kinds of situations. And I think that worked out well in your favor. Yeah, I was actually quite surprised when the mole came out because one of the former Norwegian chief

of the Norwegian intelligence service, he described me as gray mouse. Gray mouse. You know, the one who come in the room and walk out again and you say, was he here? And yeah, he was here. And the same did anime macron. Hong said the MI5 officer.

Right. In the film, you debrief with this MI5 officer who's asking you questions, just like you would if you debriefed with the CIA after getting back from North Korea. Yeah. I did that twice. With normal tourists, they don't really care.

But sometimes when you come back from a trip in North Korea, the CIA or the FBI or whatever, they want to talk to you and say, hey, you know, what did you do this time? Anything new? And if you say, oh, we went to a museum, they don't care. But if you did something, then they want to have lunch. Want to know. Yeah.

If they're like, I'm ready to take a lunch with them. Yeah. I think I could tell them a lot. When you come to the United States, I'll set up a lunch. That's great. Yeah. I also found out, sorry, that I was really good to networking with people, without people actually know I was networking with them, you know, just to get the information

from the people around. And I think that kind of coolness or not even coolness, but that calm person as I am, was just a perfect match for this project. Yeah. I had never arguing with it. any people or anything during this 10, 11 years. Yeah, you seem pretty unflappable. Like, even when you're nervous in the film, you can't really tell.

I mean, you can, I guess, if you say, I'm really nervous right now, I got to take off this microphone. But there are times, and we'll get to a couple of close calls where I thought, yeah, I'd be shitting myself. And you were like, oh, let's see if this works. I want to kind of keep chronological order here because the story can get kind of complicated. But how long were you in this before Alejandro, Alejandro Kaoabena starts asking you to figure out ways to help North Korea make money?

I will say three and a half, four years. Okay. Approximately. I met Alejandro in 2012 in my first visit in North Korea. And then we had a small chat to a banquet dinner. And he said, when you come back to Denmark, send me an email and let's, you know, just stay in contact. And then we quite fast find out that if the most important thing is I never knew that

Masbrueger, the director of the mole, met Alejandro before. So that was actually for Masbrugher, a great thing that myself came into him as my mission. So then it took some years before I found out that they actually traveled together. So that was good for me and good for the whole project because then it was my own way of, you know, moving into those things. But the first meeting I had in Spain with him, he talked about many things, of course, but he said, maybe we can do some business with the North Koreans. When I came back to Denmark, I sent him an email, I said, Alahanto, thank you so much for taking

your time, speaking with me and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And he sent me an email back and said, well, by the way, if you could find people who would like to invest from 50,000 euros to a million euros, we can do something. And that just, you know, started up building this whole thing. And then for the next almost three years, no, it was more than three years. I was, you know, networking and participating in meetings and everything that KFA did. And then we came to a point where Alahante should meet up with a fake investor. And that was Mr. James.

Yeah, but in the beginning, I think that Maspooga tried to contact to regular Danish business people, not telling them anything about the plot, but if they were interesting in looking on investment in North Korea, and it was like, Stey, no. Yeah, well, first of all, it's illegal in pretty much every single country in the world where you would ever go. Without saying every country, let's say any country. Let's say any country where you would even think about going on vacation or even think about visiting a friend in, it's illegal. Yeah.

Yeah. This is international sanctions galore. A few months before, Mass Breaker was to a book exhibition. And that exhibition, they also had a little award with podcasts. And then there was a podcast about criminal who spent eight years in jail for selling cocaine to the jet set in Copenhagen. And that person was Mr. James. Right. And they just, you know, fall in.

And just, again, then, Mass was saying, well, took the phone. Hello, Jim, this is a mess. Listen, I need somebody who knows the game as a criminal. Do you think you know, or could you, blah, blah, blah, go to North Korea maybe? And, you know, yeah, when are we leaving? Right. Tomorrow. So let's get a picture of Mr. James here, because normal people don't say, yeah,

I can pretend to be an international arms dealer and go to North Korea and play that role. Mr. James is quite a character, right? He was in the French Foreign Legion. He got out of the French, and if you know anything about that, that's like, if your life is really a total shit show, go join the French Foreign Legion where you can get away with killing terrorists in Africa or like insurgents in the Middle East and you get paid kind of crappy, but at the end you get a French passport. But this is a guy from Denmark, okay? So this isn't a guy who needs a French passport. If you are living in the middle of South Sudan and your only way to get to a better life is to join the French Foreign Legion and you're kind of a bad mofo, go ahead. But if you're in Denmark and you join the French Foreign Legion, you are not just an adrenaline junkie.

You are somebody who basically doesn't give a fuck if you live or die. That's kind of where you have to be, right? Yeah. And I think to put in Mr. James or Jim as his call was when the first meeting with Alejandro in Oslo, I was told late the evening before, can you book a ticket more for Mr. James for Jim? Because he is our person now. So he came in very late. And that was actually good because then we just have like an hour in the airport to figure our own cover story, how we knew each other. We didn't even sit together in the plane to Norway.

But it was just like we just matched together straight away. and he played his characters so well. He did. And I'll talk about the cover in a bit here. But, okay, so he gets out of the French Foreign Legion, Mr. James, and he becomes a cocaine dealer, like a big enough cocaine dealer to go to prison for eight years, gets out and decides he's going to be an actor,

which is actually a perfect role for him because he's like this tall, good-looking guy who's obviously insane and can paint himself in a different way easily. He can do many of crazy things, yeah. And he pretends to be this representative anyway or an oilman who's interested in investing in different places, you know, $50 million in up, otherwise it's not interesting, he says. And he says, yeah, I'll invest in North Korea.

I don't care. And I guess if you need somebody to pretend to be an arms dealer, a former soldier and international cocaine dealer who is now an actor is really the perfect person to do this. Yeah, he was, you know, taking on this character, like, I think it's 90% himself, actually, because he knows this criminal game. And as he told me, I was always supposed to lie when I was out, you know, that's what drug dealers do or criminals do they lie to families lie to everybody and i think that was the strength for him because even though that the north koreans tried to you know push him a bit with questions

it was like oh i can do this i do this and i do this or just give me 10 million more you know he was just like acting like money is not an issue and i was like wow he's really really into this and i was the quite clever one and he was like the elephant in the glasshouse you know big arms around and the funny thing is he was brilliant having in North Korea. And today's, well, he's become one of my best friends, of course, but we are so different from each other. And I think that's just what makes us a good couple. And I remember Mr. Kang told me the jokes Mr. James of putting up could be, you know,

pervert jokes and funny jokes and, you know, but that was also great for me and him because, you know, North Korea, you really need something to laugh about. But he translated some of the jokes. And then Mr. Kang was forced to translate them to Korean. And he said, they're not so good, those jokes. Ulrich, can you please tell Mr. James? And say, yeah, yeah, sure.

And I came into my room and I was like, no, I won't tell Mr. James because he needs to be Mr. James. He needs to be himself. Yeah. Yeah, because if I go in and say, hey, Jim, listen, Mr. Kang just told me that the jokes. And maybe that would have made him think, oh, I need to, you know, change myself a bit. You don't want him to get in his head and start overthinking it. You want him to be off the, he needs to be a little. He needs to be a little bit out of control because his character is an arms dealer that is out of control.

Exactly. Yeah. Then I think actually just, I can translate it different if it's needed. Right. I'm not going to say what he said. I'm going to say a crappier version and they'll just go, eh, it's not funny, but, you know, that's the Danish humor. Danish humor. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to say that joke about women's body parts in front of 15 different people. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But they also liked him. They liked him because of his money. No doubt about that.

And when you can sit a whole day with North Koreans and negotiate about things and say, well, it's 3 o'clock in the morning, we have a deal. You go to bed for five hours, have your breakfast, and you have to start a meeting next day. And they start again from scratch. And it was like, no, you promised, and Alejandro promised.

When we're here, we have to do business, things just flipped over, and then all the doors open to what you see in the mole with, well, the weapons and, rock things and it was like they just needed to really verify Mr. James himself. This is the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Ulrich Larson, The Mole. We'll be right back. Thanks so much for listening to and supporting the show. All those links, all those discount codes, all that stuff that you probably don't feel like writing down. I got you. We put them all in one place.

Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. All the codes are there. All the URLs are there. Please consider supporting those who support us. Don't forget, we have worksheets for many. episodes if you want some of the drills, exercises, takeaways, those are all talked about during the show. We put them all in one easy place for you. That link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. And now for the rest of part one with Ulrich, the Mole.

They don't really verify anything. They spent a lot of time with him, but they didn't even Google the company. I know that Mr. James disappeared after the film, but I got to say, I looked for him online, and I didn't even have to call in any heavy-duty resources. I found him fairly easy. Yeah, but I think if Alejandro or somebody Googled him before the mole, they will have internet pages of him being this cocaine jet set, Russia.

It was a big case in Denmark and in all the newspapers, and that could verify him as a criminal. So I think if Alejandro, and I think he did because, yeah, he checks up people. And I think that was enough. And for him, also when I verify for Mr. James, as he's my friend and he represents this company and they like to do risky business and stuff. And of course, Alejandro said to me many times, well, $10,000 is nothing for Mr. James so he can give to you and me. So we need butter on our bread, as we're saying, Denmark or had to pay our bills. And Alejandro was really expecting this to happen.

And also because Mr. James said, I heard you like Breitling watches. When this is over, go out and find a Breitling watch and send to Oleg so he can see what kind it is. And I will find one when we are through all this. And I practically just came home on that meeting. I had an email for Alejandro with what kind of writing what she wanted and everything and the price and size. And it was like, he just, well. Took it hook, line and sinker is what we say.

Yeah. Hook line and sinker. I think the people he have been sending to North Korea has been cheating a lot by him. He just literally cheat people. Yeah, by overcharging them and keeping their money, you mean? Yeah. A funny story is, I can't remember what year is so many years, but we went to Tarragona, he's native city. Alejandra's native city, yeah.

Yeah. And we have to host a meeting where the ambassador from Madrid will attend as well. And this room, he said, it's around 300 euros. And I have this collection box. So if people would like to donate, it will be very helpful for the association. And you know, people say, well, 300 euros. And for me, as a Danish citizen, oh, that's cheap. For the Spanish people, it's like, wow, it's like a rent or something. And people donated. I donated myself. Then I have to speak with Alejandro. So I would. walk with him after the meeting up to the cashier to pay. When I look at the payers, it was like 79 or 89 euros. So he marks everything up and pockets the cash? I think he really, really do that to many people because in a point we have to buy some drawings and stuff and he wanted money for them first. He said it was a thousand euros and the week after, don't forget the 1500 euros, you know, he pushed the limit all the time. Yeah. But I don't know what his income is. actually, I don't think he has a job. Yeah.

I think he has been living on sending people to North Korea, benefit from that. Which, look, you can make money as a tour operator, but if you're marking things up 300% and pocketing the rest and saying that that's the cost, then that's, yeah, your borderline con man. But that's the least of our concerns, right? Because Alejandro soon offers to, with Mr. James, to make missiles, tanks, weapons, and methamphetamine in the DPRK, so in North Korea for Mr. James. That's pretty damn brazen to bust that out, right? This is like he didn't say, yeah, we can make handicrafts,

we can make water faucets that can be imported to China for sale. He says, look, let's make highly illegal stuff that's used to hurt and kill people, period, because that's valuable. Right, this is where he starts. For me, it was like a dream for me to show that that was the kind of thing he liked to do. And I was so surprised when he opened his mouth about that. And I was thinking, wow, it's going to be. some kind of documentary.

Yeah, because you're getting this on film and you're thinking, this is gold. Like, keep talking, Alejandro. Yeah, and I was like, well, what more can I achieve now? And then, you know, we need to have proof of the things and going to North Korea and come back with that kind of things from North Korea, which were the most scariest room I ever been in when they showed us those catalogs of weapons and tanks and missiles. So let's talk about how that happened, right? So you're planning to go to North Korea, and they said you've got to be able to hold your liquor.

because this is a country where you're drinking for fun, but you're also drinking for business. And you're drinking, now you're not just going on a tour to look at a parade. You're going to drink with arms dealers who are probably hanging out with intelligence agents because you're foreign. And they're going to be seeing,

can we get these guys drunk and they make a mistake in their cover story? Can we get them really drunk and really sick? And then they're telling us something that they shouldn't be telling us. Maybe they don't even remember or we can convince them of something. So now you're thinking like,

oh my God, I better start drinking whiskey in my free. time just to make sure I can handle it. Were you nervous at all going to North Korea, one, knowing you're in an undercover operation at this point, but also Otto Warmbier, that American student, who was 20, and ended up either being framed or possibly stole a poster and ended up getting sentenced to 12 years of hard labor and ended up dying? Were you thinking about that at all? Well, the most scary part about the Otto Warmbier case is when we were in Pyongyang having those meetings with the president of the weapons factory and all those kind of things.

Otto Wombeer was in prison in North Korea. And when I look back now, I was been driving around the hall of Pungyang being treated like a king. And when the whole production found out about the story about Otto Wombeer, they said, listen, if we knew what happened to Otto, we wouldn't have sent you out to North Korea because Otto was probably framed. He was framed. I'm quite convinced about that.

But look what happens to him because of a poster. I just literally took the pants down on the whole regime exposing their weapons program. And, well, it saddens me to speak about Ottawa because, yeah, it's just that you can treat people like he was treated as, yeah, I don't understand that. But I think he was used as a, how do you say, a puzzle. A political pawn, right. Yeah. Yeah, they just, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yeah.

They probably did frame him. And then they put him in prison thinking, oh, the Americans are going to have to go easy on us while we do our nuclear testing if we're whole. this kid here and then he died because probably who knows he could have been mistreated he could have been given a drug he ended up with brain damage and went into a coma and passed away yeah actually i speak with the won't be a family today i've been speaking many times with them since the release of the moat and fred and cindia are the most the most fantastic people and whatever i can do to help them they they know that they should just call me and i will do whatever it takes to help them And it's just people ask me a lot about Auto Warm Beer, and they don't know that I speak with

his parents. But when they find out what he was accused of and what I did, they just think that I must be the most craziest person on earth going out there and practically take up a camera of filming weapon contracts being signed. Like they put him in a prison in hard labor camp at age 20 or 19 or however old he was for taking a poster, and this is the charge they cooked up. Imagine what would happen to you if you expose their international weapons program. This would be the worst and most unimaginable forms of torture, I think, that are possible

technologically to inflict on somebody. I mean, this is stuff that I imagine you have nightmares about that. Well, when we came back home from North Korea, we really started rethinking security. And we were quite agreed on that we are not going back to North Korea ever to do the rest of this documentary. We had enough to stop at that point, but, you know, there was a bit of time to digest what we came back with. And Alejandro came up with the wife of the year of this next phase of triangle dealing with a Jordanian person to send oil. And it was like, is he now trying to frame Mr. James to put up money to a person who do not success?

But I did a check on Mr. Dusuki. And in the end, I asked Alejandro for a phone number for him because I didn't trust Alejandro at all. So in the other end, there was a Mr. DeSukee who was pleased. to speak with me. And it was like, well, let's see what this can take. And from that point on, we really put up the security. So Mr. Dusuki is a Jordanian, I guess you'd say businessman, but he's also connected to some dark circles. And he wanted to smuggle fuel. And I want to get that story in a little bit. But before, I want to sort of take it back and say, like, look, okay, you're prepping for your trip to North Korea. You were worried about going. Eventually you stopped. But before you went to

North Korea, you took a crash course with a retired CIA agent. So just What this course was like? This is a guy who wouldn't be filmed, you know, Warabalakava mask on camera, and he was teaching you things like gun disarms, which frankly are not going to be super useful if you're in a place with nowhere to go. You're better off just frog marching with the guns. Well, I was so lucky to meet up with Max. I know his real identity, of course, and I have a lot of respect for him.

But, well, for me, in the beginning, it was like, wow, I'm going to the U.S. to meet up with a CIA agent. I was like, wow, James Bond, I should have been 13 years old or something at that point. Yeah. And I find out how, how an agent thinks. And one of the most important thing he taught me was to be a perfect mole or undercover agent is that you have to be 95% yourself and then 5% mole, because you will always be tested by people when you walk in with criminals. So keep your story so close to the truth. Tell them I have two children. I have a wife. I live in the suburb of Copenhagen. My phone number, my emails, give it to them because all those kind of things, it's normal things that people will ask for. Just be yourself and trust yourself.

And the last 5% is the one who observe and maybe ask those silly questions. As a normal person, never would ask people about, I play myself a bit naive, you know, not stupid but you know like wow can you please explain that again because i really need to think that through my head with people like alexander who likes to brag and you know i'm the man and and you're oh yeah now listen we do like this and this and this and everything was recorded so it was just like to be yourself but as he taught me it's easy to see if you get followed and especially if people tread you with a gun they have the power of you but if you give action to that then his action is always better than reaction, which means he's pointing at you or she is pointing

at you with a gun and you are in close distance. That person will never expect you to grab the gun away and always push it to the person because then you do the action, but the one who is threatening you needs to rethink the whole situation and do the reaction. At that point, you can really get yourself an advantage of getting away, even get the gun away and stuff like that. And he was very taught me that if people are watching you, following you, if you have a suspicion of, if you and me was meeting on the street and you were following me or, you know, I were following you, if we walk through each other, normal people will always just give a small glimpse to the person coming next to you. And he said, in 99% the one who is following another

person will never look the person in the eye or at the person. And that was a good, good thing to And I think one time I was followed in Madrid by a police officer in Madrid when I had a meeting with Alejandro because he followed me around. And when I walked past him, he just looked away. But I think actually he was maybe following Alejandro and not me. But I was there, he probably think, okay, you've been speaking with this guy for three hours in a cafe. Maybe we should just look at you. It's very possible. They may also know just from, they may, I mean, look, if you were going to North Korea, you're probably on the register of, Danish intelligence after the third or fourth, you know, visit with your medals. And then they say,

hey, look, it might be nothing, but he's meeting with the Korean Friendship Association. He's meeting with the leader of the Korean Friendship Association. They're probably sharing intelligence between Spain and Denmark. And they're just saying, hey, look, we don't know of anything. These could be two geeks, you know, watching North Korean documentaries for all we know. But they're meeting up and they've been there for three hours, you know, maybe you should just make sure he's, see where he's going. I would imagine anybody who has a lot to do with North Korea is on the intelligence radar or on the radar of intelligence services in their country. I went a few times and I remember talking with an FBI agent friend of mine and he said, you should meet

with the CIA because you want to be ahead of this if anything happens, not like, oh yeah, I've been to North Korea four times. Why? Is that weird? He's like, you should be meeting with them so that they know that they can talk to you face to face, not try and get to you some other way. So I ended up meeting with them for that reason. So it doesn't surprise me at all that you were followed. Well, actually, the first time I spoke with an intelligence service in those 11 years, that was after a release of the mole in Denmark. They came to my house security-wise to check out if I had the right doors and windows and, you know, alarms, video civilians and stuff. And to tell me how they see the, how to say, the threat against me.

The threat against you, from North Korean agents. Yeah, or for people supporting North Korea. From September, I will go out as a speaker, have a two-end Denmark. And everybody knows what town I'm going to, but they don't know the venue. Right. The people who bought tickets will have the venue three hours before in advance on their mobile phone or email, and I will be followed around by a security agent with me from stage to backstage. and just to care for my safety.

And hopefully, I'm coming to the U.S. to speak as well. Some people have been asking me already if I go outside of Denmark. And of course, I would like to go to the U.S. to tell my story because I had a lot of emails and message on Twitter and Instagram about my story. And they also asked me, when will it be broadcasted in the U.S. But I don't know when, but I think maybe some the broadcasters, how does the TV stations, are a bit afraid of what happened with the interview movie and the Sony network that they...

Ah, right, with the hack where they were going to release the movie and instead Sony got a major attack from North Korean cyber security agents. Yeah, and they took, they leaked emails, they destroyed intellectual property. Yeah, that was a big problem. But also, I think that it could maybe be seen as from a political perspective that this movie, if it will be broadcast in the U.S. could change the... the whole relationship with the U.S. and North Korea. I don't know because it literally just exposed the North Koreans,

but I hope it will be out in the autumn, in the U.S. Actually, in the autumn, it will be shown in Japan, in the cinemas, around 25 cinemas all over Japan. That's a great thing, and they have a story with North Korea as well. They do. Having invaded the Korean Peninsula, Japan and North Korea are... North Korea hates Japan as much as the United States, possibly in some ways more, possibly in some ways they're less of a threat. But certainly they are

essentially looked upon as Nazis just like the United States. I mean, they are the enemy. Yeah. And as well, the story of Korea Peninsula, as you say, it's a never-ending story. Of course, I've got thoughts on this episode. But before I get into that, here's a sample of my interview with Guy Raz, who hosts NPR's How I Built This. He shares his number one secret to getting a great interview, how asking difficult questions during the interview serves both the overall story and the guests being grilled, and it's kind of nice to just riff with somebody else in the business. I came to NPR as a 22-year-old intern.

I was very lucky. You know, I really wanted to be an overseas reporter, and the stars were sort of aligned in the right way where I got the job. And I was totally terrified. You know, I was sent to Berlin to be the correspondent for NPR. Don't mess this up. Oh, yeah, and by the way, you're going to Bosnia tomorrow. And that was how I began overseas as a foreign correspondent.

Bearing witness to historical events, being somewhere where they're unfolding in front of your eyes in real time, is thrilling. It's absolutely extraordinary and fascinating. I mean, imagine if you were standing at the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. Yeah. It's an extraordinary feeling to be in these places, and I was able to witness history unfold in front of my eyes many, many times. If there's really a secret to interviewing people, this is my secret. If you really want to get a good interview from somebody, you need to honor their story. You need to honor them.

If they're coming to talk to you, and the way you honor them is you learn a lot about them. You spend the time. You do the work. And if you do that, there's a better than 50% chance that they will appreciate that and respect that. I mean, those wow moments, they're real because what I do in an interview is I completely leave the world that I'm in. I completely leave the surroundings, everything, all the chaos, the noise. You know, Trump and politics, I just leave it. It's out. It's all the noise. COVID's gone. It's like when you see a movie.

I am just in that person's world. For more, including the one teachable quality all entrepreneurs seem to have in common, check out episode 404 of the Jordan Harbinger Show with Guy Raz. Thank you to all Rick Larson. This is the end of part one. Of course, we're going to keep it going with part two to here in just a few days. probably already out, depending on when you're listening to this. Obviously, all the links are in the show notes, transcripts are in the show notes, worksheets are in the show notes. There's a video of this interview going up on our YouTube channel at Jordan Harbinger.com

slash YouTube. We also have a Clips channel with cuts that don't make it to the show or highlights from interviews that you can't see anywhere else. Jordan Harbinger.com slash clips is where you can find that. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram, or you can hit me on LinkedIn. I always love hearing from you. I'm teaching you how to dig the well before you get thirsty and connect with amazing people and manage relationships using the systems, software, and tiny habits that I use.

Again, the course is free. It's at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course, teaching you how to dig the well before you get thirsty. And most of the people you hear on the show, they subscribe to the course, they contribute to the course. Come join us. You'll be in smart company. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, J. Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Millie Ocampo, Ian Baird, Josh Ballard, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know somebody who's into North Korea, arms deals, crazy stories, please share this episode with them.

I hope you find something great in every episode of the show. Please share the show with those you care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen. And we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way.

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