In an ongoing bid to tighten control on communication with the outside world, North Korean security authorities are actively soliciting informants to arrest users of foreign mobile phones on "espionage charges."
The informants are tasked with monitoring fellow residents suspected of placing international calls and reporting their findings back to the local State Security Department (SSD) unit, a source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on Tuesday.
“Informants employ different tactics to try to induce confidants to place calls to the South, like encouraging them to call their loved ones and check in or ask for money in the case of financial troubles,” she explained. The goal, she added, is for the SSD officers to arrive on the scene and arrest the transgressors for “attempting to overthrow the regime.”
[Source: Daily NK]
This method is not new. SSD personnel routinely employ threatening tactics to coerce their informants to report on the perceived illicit acts of subjects under their monitoring purview.
