N. Korean Spy Ring Broken, Seoul Reports
South Korea’s national intelligence agency said Monday it has uncovered a major ring of North Korean-financed subversives, including a leading dissident it said has worked for the north for 36 years.
The agency said North Korea paid the subversives $2.1 million for propaganda activity that included founding a pro-Pyongyang political party. South Korea considers any activity on behalf of North Korea to be espionage.
The Agency for National Security Planning said four people were under arrest and that 41 leading dissidents have been questioned as suspects or witnesses.
Agency spokesman Chung Hyung Keun said North Korea’s key operative in the ring was Kim Nak Jong, 61, a leading dissident, college lecturer and ardent campaigner for unification of the peninsula. He said Kim had been an undercover agent for the north since the 1950s.
Dissidents claimed that the government was trying to destroy their movement’s credibility.
The announcement came as North and South Korea agreed on the final details of a landmark pact on economic exchanges.
A spokesman for the South-North Dialogue Office in Seoul said the final items in a supplementary accord were approved at a meeting between officials of the Communist north and capitalist south in the border village of Panmunjom.
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