[How about this book] Since When Did North Korean Drugs Start Flowing into Korea?

In recent years, drug offenders have significantly increased in our society. The amount of seized narcotics surged from 244.2 kg in 2016 to 1,295.7 kg in 2021. On November 8, 2022, during the 400th Budget and Accounts Special Committee meeting, suspicions were raised that drugs produced by North Korean workers employed at a Chinese factory were being smuggled into South Korea by a sitting member of the National Assembly.

North Korea researcher Lee Gwan-hyung says it is not surprising that drugs produced by North Koreans are entering South Korea. In his recently published book Suryeong and Drugs, he claims that North Korean drugs infiltrated South Korea right after liberation in August 1945. The author holds a PhD in North Korean studies focusing on the North Korean drug issue. He has interviewed defectors and collected data for over 20 years, which he elaborates on in this book.

Indeed, several newspapers reported on North Korean drugs immediately after liberation. The Donga Ilbo on December 14, 1948, reported, "The Gyeonggi Province Welfare Bureau’s Pharmaceutical Division conducted crackdowns on drug dealers from January to October 1948. As a result, 440 cases in Gyeonggi Province and over 500 cases in Incheon were arrested. The types and weights of seized drugs were 57,567 g of raw opium, 3,300 g of heroin, and 2,320 g of morphine. It was confirmed that all these drugs were smuggled from North Korea." The Kyunghyang Shinmun on May 6, 1949, wrote, "The Seoul Metropolitan Police Department’s Economic Division arrested six members of a drug crime organization in Huam-dong, Seoul, on April 29, 1949, and seized about 112.5 kg of opium. This organization smuggled opium from North Korea dozens of times since May 1948."

The author argues that except for the period when President Park Chung-hee strongly cracked down on drugs, North Korean drugs have been steadily entering South Korea for the past 80 years. President Park designated drugs as one of the five major social evils along with smuggling, draft evasion, gambling, and violent crime in his 1966 New Year’s address and launched a strong crackdown.

Since the era of Kim Il-sung, North Korea has collaborated with various criminal organizations worldwide to traffic drugs. Drugs were treated as a lucrative source of funds and a kind of weapon to target South Korea.

The author sheds light on how the Kim family of North Korea?Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un?expanded the drug business and the incidents that occurred during this process.

Drugs were familiar to Kim Il-sung from a young age. He grew up witnessing his father Kim Hyong-jik making large sums of money through opium trade. Kim Hyong-jik was born and lived in Pyongyang but fled to Manchuria after an incident involving the assault of a young woman. In Manchuria, he forged a graduation certificate from Severance Medical School and opened a clinic where he sold opium. Kim Il-sung’s maternal uncle, Kang Jin-seok, supplied opium to Kim Hyong-jik.

The author confirms several interesting facts about Kim Il-sung. In North Korea, the Battle of Pochonbo is cited as a representative example of Kim Il-sung’s anti-Japanese armed struggle and he is deified. However, the author does not rule out the possibility that the Battle of Pochonbo might be entirely fabricated. This is because Kim Il-sung’s handwritten resume, discovered recently in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, contains no mention of the Battle of Pochonbo. The resume was written in January 1941 when Kim Il-sung entered the Soviet Union. The author cites an interview with a high-ranking North Korean military officer who participated in the Korean War, stating that Kim Il-sung may have participated in the Battle of Pochonbo but possibly fled during the battle.

Originally, Kim Il-sung was the name of an independence army commander active in Manchuria at the time. The original name of North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, given by his maternal grandfather, was Kim Song-ju. The author estimates that Kim Song-ju abandoned his original name and started using the name Kim Il-sung around 1931.

During the Japanese colonial rule, the colonial government systematically cultivated poppies throughout Korea. By 1941, the Governor-General of Korea had expanded poppy cultivation to about 7,491 hectares nationwide?an area larger than 10,000 soccer fields. The Japanese used the money earned from selling poppies for political funds, espionage funds, and colonial administration expenses. After liberation, poppy cultivation was banned in South Korea, but Kim Il-sung encouraged poppy cultivation in North Korea. The opium produced was also used as funding for the South Korean Workers' Party (Namrodang) activities. Lee Jae-bok, head of the Namrodang’s military department, received 10 kg of opium monthly.

The drug industry in North Korea, started by Kim Il-sung, grew larger through Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un. Currently, North Korean drugs are produced worldwide, including in Nigeria and Uganda in Africa, and Cambodia and the Philippines in Southeast Asia. To conceal the origin, drugs are produced externally. Methamphetamine from Nigeria has been entering South Korea since the 1990s. The author argues that this methamphetamine could actually be North Korean in origin. In 1995, Kim Jong-il expressed support to Sani Abacha, then chairman of Nigeria’s Provisional Ruling Council, and relations between North Korea and Nigeria greatly improved afterward. Nigeria is also a preferred posting for North Korean diplomats. The more corrupt a place is, the easier it is to earn foreign currency through drug sales. Therefore, North Korean diplomats prefer postings in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.

Kim Jong-un, who currently rules North Korea, is a ruthless figure who even orchestrated the assassination of his half-brother Kim Jong-nam. The author explains that Kim Jong-un’s drug crime skills surpass those of his father Kim Jong-il. North Korea has exported weapons and drugs to conflict zones worldwide, and the recent deployment of troops to the Russia-Ukraine war may be intended to produce drugs in Russia, the author analyzes.

Suryeong and Drugs | Written by Lee Gwan-hyung | Sille Books | 440 pages | 29,000 KRW