Koreans

Nov. 5 (UPI) — The U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against eight individuals and two entities accused of laundering proceeds from North Korean cybercrime and information technology worker fraud schemes that help fund Pyongyang’s weapons programs.

The department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Tuesday that North Korea has stolen more than $3 billion over the past three years, using sophisticated techniques such as advanced malware and social engineering to breach financial systems and cryptocurrency platforms.

“North Korean state-sponsored hackers steal and launder money to fund the regime’s nuclear weapons program,” Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence John K. Hurley said in a statement. “By generating revenue for Pyongyang’s weapons development, these actors directly threaten U.S. and global security.”

Hurley added that the Treasury is “identifying and disrupting the facilitators and enablers behind these schemes to cut off the DPRK’s illicit revenue streams.”

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea.

Among those sanctioned are Jang Kuk Chol and Ho Jong Son, North Korean bankers who allegedly helped manage illicit funds, including $5.3 million in cryptocurrency — some of it linked to ransomware that has previously targeted U.S. victims.

Korea Mangyongdae Computer Technology Co. and its president U Yong Su were also added to the list. The company allegedly operates IT-worker delegations from the Chinese cities of Shenyang and Dandong.

Ryujong Credit Bank, another target, was accused of laundering foreign-currency earnings and moving funds for sanctioned North Korean entities. Six additional individuals were designated for facilitating money transfers.

Under the sanctions, all property and interests in property of the designated individuals and entities within U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally barred from engaging in transactions with them. Financial institutions dealing with the sanctioned parties may also face enforcement actions.

The move builds on earlier U.S. actions this year against North Korean cyber networks. In July, the State Department sanctioned Song Kum Hyok, a member of the Andariel hacking group, for operating remote IT-worker schemes that funneled wages back to Pyongyang.

The Justice Department also filed criminal charges in 16 states against participants in a campaign that placed North Korean IT workers in U.S. companies.

Tuesday’s OFAC statement cited an October report by the 11-country Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team, which described North Korea’s cybercrime apparatus as “a full-spectrum, national program operating at a sophistication approaching the cyber programs of China and Russia.”

The report added that “nearly all the DPRK’s malicious cyber activity, cybercrime, laundering and IT work is carried out under the supervision, direction and for the benefit of entities sanctioned by the United Nations for their role in the DPRK’s unlawful WMD and ballistic missile programs.”

The sanctions follow President Donald Trump‘s recent visit to South Korea, where a much-anticipated meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un failed to materialize.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service told lawmakers Tuesday that a summit could take place after joint U.S.-South Korean military drills scheduled for March, according to opposition lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun of the People Power Party.

SEOUL, Oct. 20 (UPI) — Fewer South Koreans than ever say their country should reunify with North Korea, according to a new survey released Monday, reflecting a growing acceptance of permanent division and deepening public indifference toward the North.

Just 49% of South Koreans said unification is necessary, the survey by the government-funded Korea Institute for National Unification found. The figure represents a drop of 3.8% from last year and marks the lowest level since the Seoul-based think tank began its annual poll in 2014.

It is the first time support has fallen below a majority, representing what researchers called a “structural shift” in how South Koreans view the decades-old goal of national reunification.

“These results suggest that perceptions of the necessity of unification have entered a phase of structural change, rather than short-term fluctuation,” the report’s executive summary said. “The decline appears to reflect the compounded effects of North Korea’s hostile ‘two-states’ claim, the continued suspension of inter-Korean relations and domestic political dynamics.”

KINU noted that the decline cuts across all age groups but is most pronounced among younger generations, many of whom see North Korea as a separate state rather than part of a divided homeland.

Some 63.2% of respondents said unification was not needed if the two Koreas could maintain peaceful coexistence, the highest level recorded since the question was introduced nine years ago. At the same time, 47% agreed that “it is better to stay divided as we are now,” reflecting what KINU described as a normalization of both peaceful and “hostile” coexistence.

“The rising preference for hostile coexistence does not indicate a desire for conflict but rather a psychological inclination to maintain the status quo in the face of uncertain change,” the report said.

The survey also found indifference toward North Korea at a record high, with 68% of respondents saying they had little or no interest in the North, up sharply from about 51% in 2015. The trend has persisted regardless of political ideology or shifts in inter-Korean ties, KINU said.

South Koreans still favor limited engagement, however. Nearly 70% backed sports and cultural exchanges with the North, and 54% supported continued economic cooperation even during political tensions. Support for another inter-Korean summit remained high at 69%, including a majority of conservatives.

Support for humanitarian aid took a negative turn this year, with 39.5% against compared to 36.8% in favor — a shift that KINU linked to perceptions that North Korea’s economic conditions have improved amid strengthening ties with Russia and China.

The administration of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has made efforts to rehabilitate relations between the two Koreas since he took office in June, with conciliatory gestures such as removing propaganda loudspeakers from border areas.

Last week, Seoul resumed an excavation project for the remains of soldiers killed in the Korean War at a battle site near the inter-Korean border, in what the military called “a practical measure to transform the DMZ into a zone of peace.”

Pyongyang, however, continues to reject Seoul’s diplomatic gestures while advancing its nuclear weapons program.

The 2025 KINU survey was conducted July 10 to Aug. 13 through face-to-face interviews with 1,000 adults.

South Korea has banned citizens from going to parts of Cambodia amid growing concerns over the country’s scam industry.

Dozens of South Korean nationals who had been detained in Cambodia for alleged involvement in cyberscam operations have been returned home and placed under arrest, according to South Korean authorities.

Officers arrested the individuals on board a chartered flight sent to collect them from Cambodia, a South Korean police official told the AFP news agency.

“A total of 64 nationals just arrived at the Incheon international airport on a chartered flight,” the official said on Saturday, adding that all of the individuals have been taken into custody as criminal suspects.

South Korea sent a team to Cambodia earlier this week to investigate dozens of its nationals who were kidnapped into the Southeast Asian nation’s online scam industry.

South Korean National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac previously said the detained individuals included both “voluntary and involuntary participants” in scam operations.

On Friday, Cambodian Ministry of Interior spokesman Touch Sokhak said the repatriation agreement with South Korea was the “result of good cooperation in suppression of scams between the two countries”.

Online scam operations have proliferated in Cambodia since the COVID-19 pandemic, when the global shutdown saw many Chinese-owned casinos and hotels in the country pivot to illicit operations.

Operating from industrial-scale scam centres, tens of thousands of workers perpetrate online romance scams known as “pig-butchering”, often targeting people in the West in a vastly lucrative industry responsible for the theft of tens of billions of dollars each year.

Pig-butchering – a euphemism for fattening up a victim before they are slaughtered – often involves fraudulent cryptocurrency investment schemes that build trust over time before funds are stolen.

Parallel industries have blossomed in Laos, the Philippines and war-ravaged Myanmar, where accounts of imprisonment and abuse in scam centres are the most severe.

An estimated 200,000 people are working in dozens of large-scale scam operations across Cambodia, with many scam compounds owned by or linked to the country’s wealthy and politically connected. About 1,000 South Korean nationals are believed to be among that figure.

On Tuesday, the United States and United Kingdom announced sweeping sanctions against a Cambodia-based multinational crime network, identified as the Prince Group, for running a chain of “scam centres” across the region.

UK authorities seized 19 London properties worth more than 100 million pounds ($134m) linked to the Prince Group, which markets itself as a legitimate real estate, financial services and consumer businesses firm.

Prosecutors said that at one point, Prince Group’s chair, Chinese-Cambodian tycoon Chen Zhi, bragged that scam operations were pulling in $30m a day.

Chen – who has served as an adviser to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and his father, long-ruling former Prime Minister Hun Sen – is also wanted on charges of wire fraud and money laundering, according to the UK and US.

Still at large, he faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted.

The move by the UK and US against the Prince Group came as South Korea announced a ban on travel to parts of Cambodia on Wednesday amid growing concerns over its citizens entering the scam industry.

South Korean police have said they will also conduct a joint investigation into the recent death of a college student in Cambodia who was reportedly kidnapped and tortured by a crime ring.

The South Korean student was found dead in a pick-up truck on August 8 in Cambodia’s southern Kampot province, with an autopsy revealing he “died as a result of severe torture, with multiple bruises and injuries across his body”.

SEOUL, Oct. 14 (UPI) — The South Korean government will send a joint response team to Cambodia to oversee the repatriation of citizens being held in the country after a surge in kidnappings, Seoul’s presidential office said Tuesday, following the highly publicized torture and murder of a 22-year-old who was lured by a scam job order.

The team, led by Second Vice Foreign Minister Kim Ji-na, will depart Wednesday, presidential spokesman Kim Nam-joon told reporters. Members of the National Police Agency and the National Intelligence Service will participate in the mission.

“The Ministry will make every possible diplomatic effort to encourage Cambodian cooperation and, in consultation with relevant ministries and agencies, strengthen the embassy’s response capabilities, including increasing the number of police officers stationed at the Cambodian embassy,” Kim said.

“The government will also consider upgrading travel alerts for key crime areas in Cambodia to prevent further damage,” he added.

The move comes after South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Tuesday called for government ministries to use “all available resources” to help South Koreans trapped in Cambodia return home.

“Relevant ministries should consult with the Cambodian government and expedite the establishment of a regular cooperation system between law enforcement authorities,” Lee said at a Cabinet meeting, according to his office.

According to data from lawmaker Na Kyung-won, the number of kidnappings of South Koreans in Cambodia soared to 220 in 2024 and reached 330 through August of this year. In previous years, the average was between 10 and 20.

Most of the cases are linked to transnational crime gangs running large-scale voice phishing rings and illegal gambling operations. Victims are lured with fake job offers and then held against their will and forced to participate in criminal activities.

In one recent case that sparked public outrage, a Korean university student was found dead near Bokor Mountain in Kampot Province after being detained and tortured. Three Chinese nationals were indicted on murder and fraud charges by Cambodian prosecutors, state-run news agency Agence Khmer Press reported on Friday.

The rash of crime reports prompted Seoul’s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun to summon Cambodia’s ambassador on Friday. The Foreign Ministry also raised its travel alert for the capital city of Phnom Penh and certain regions connected to the employment scams and detentions.

Seoul’s National Police Agency said Sunday that it planned to launch a “Korean Desk” in Cambodia to handle cases involving Korean nationals.

Lawmakers with South Korea’s opposition People Power Party on Tuesday criticized the government’s response to the rising number of crimes in Cambodia.

“Crimes targeting Koreans in Cambodia are not a new phenomenon, but the government has been inactive for some time and is only now taking action,” Rep. Choi Bo-yoon said in a statement. “Protecting the lives and safety of our citizens is the most important responsibility of any nation, but the Lee Jae Myung administration is increasingly putting the entire nation at risk.”

Choi called for a “full-scale, national effort” that includes beefing up local investigative cooperation and filling diplomatic positions, including the vacant ambassador post in Cambodia.

The ruling Democratic Party, meanwhile, blamed the previous administration of President Yoon Suk Yeol for failing to address the surge in crimes, which began while he was in office.

The DP’s Policy Committee Chairperson Han Jeoung-ae said that Yoon increased overseas development assistance to Cambodia while neglecting the safety of Korean citizens in the country.

“It has been revealed that the government reduced its international crime response personnel and ignored requests for more police officers,” Han said at a party meeting Tuesday. “Meanwhile, the number of reported detentions in Cambodia increased tenfold from 21 in 2023 to 221 in 2024.”