on instagram and twitter at. i and i new troops in the cannon for me and the entire news team here thanks so much. in mexico many foolish old lots of us right now on the climate change is an awful story faces my placing way from just one week. what's going to really guess. we still have time to ask i'm going.

north korea's like game of thrones but without the dragons. is the aristocracy society as capitalists and everything is geared to make sure that there's as much cash for kim as is possible. not in capitalism you know money is the life blood flowing through the pain it's no different in north korea. you're a $39.00 is involved in everything that makes money for north korea selling arms smuggling of drugs guns or feeds a bill for us bills this is about hundreds of millions of dollars a year. tied to did everything everything. we do all we were told was under the meek dollar.

north korea a pariah state largely isolated from the rest of the world. a dictatorship shrouded in mystery. every day the country's state run media craze the heroic deeds of the supremely. time seems to stand still here was back. in troop numbers most korea has the full flow largest army in the world for 3 generations the kim family has ruled the country by divine right fund with an iron

fist. north korea's military also is outdated but contains e.p.o. weapons running the country severe sanctions how does the regime manage to survive . and how have the kims amassed enough money to threaten the world with the most powerful weapon of all. on the other side of the world in the netherlands a history professor is working on answers to these questions. from the university of leiden has been studying the enigmatic. tree and its roots for years he says our

image of north korea is mistaken. north korea isn't what it tells it it is just look at the country functions at the highest level what is the main goal of of the government of the regime i should say it's to make money is to make cash for kim. what intrigues me personally is home north korea manages to make money. one of the questions we were stuck with says where does the money go how much money just north korea makes. for the leadership in pyongyang questions like these a dangerous north korean regime send a letter of indictment under my name to the us government charging me with 3 capital crimes the worst of the 3 was the accusation that our research my research was in my name and damages the supreme vacancy of the supreme leader this sounds like it's

a funny crime writes damaging the supreme dignity of somebody in north korea. a threat not to be taken lightly remco broke his investigations threatened to disrupt to north korea's sources of hard currency the country's 1st nuclear bomb tests in 2006 prompted international isolation without legal sources of income the regime took to raising money illegally. new york the seat of the united nations it's here that the u.n. has imposed 9 rounds of sanctions against north korea and also where its global activities are monitored by an international panel of experts. the group consists of 8 members including former intelligence military and financial experts for their own safety they work away from the public eye only the coordinator hugh griffiths is willing to speak on camera. actions have tremendous impacts on one level on

north korea that means the economy kong flourish in the way it would if they were able to sell their largest foreign currency earning commodities legitimately so they can't ship coal legitimately they can't ship or legitimately they call ship zinc legitimately. foreign currency is very important to any country no matter how talk your kids economy you need foreign currency to buy the goods are essential for your population all for your elite group so foreign currency is pretty essential to north korea's survival the question is what's more important to the north korean leadership developing a nuclear and ballistic missile program or seeing their economy flourish.

the regime opted to go for the bomb in 2005 or sufficiently revealed that it had nuclear weapons as protection against attacks from foreign power as specifically the united states. home to the government and to the country's elite. shiny new apartment blocks lines showcase seventies. this is where pyongyang's up a cost resides the city is home to 3000000 people but only those who are considered loyal to the regime if he or anyone wanting to enter the capital from the outside needs a permit. sanctioned show. economic research institute he's also rise to talk to journalists about the sanctions for example i'm drawn to you don't want to. it's impossible to sanction

a country completely even now we trade and obtain foreign currency on our own sanction as much as you like we will advance of our own accord we will turn our competitiveness into a sword through our sacrifices and we will progress bravely. look us in the. the sanctions that have been put on north korea are extremely strict i mean this for the nothing the country that has been sanctioned bor diversely more more strictly it's the same time they no longer working. 'd there is a huge problem with our north korea policy and using sanctions to try and have the regime modify its behavior. because renunciation in the one entity that earns most of his money this case is afloat financially this gives

a life. many high ranking defectors from north korea talk about a secret government department said to administer the regime secret funds kim il sung and his son kim jong il reportedly set it up in the late 1970 s. and equipped it with wide ranging powers its tasks using clan the stein hard currency transactions to secure an independent power base for the kims while also raising money for the nuclear bomb. personal luxury its name office 39. only 200 kilometers to the south east seoul south korea's hypermodern capital and one of the 10 most expensive cities in the world around 25000000 people live in the metro area about half the population of south korea. among them most of the 30000 people who managed to flee from north korea

to start a new and hopefully anonymous life in the megacity. the young han used to be a north korean diplomat he escaped in 1901 he went on to become deputy director of south korea's institute for national security strategy which employs north korean defectors to gather valuable information few people know more about the kim dynasty s workings. q journey to legend has it that when kim jong il came to power he renamed the finance department of the workers' party central committee it was now called office 39 because it was located on floor 3 in 09. 'd another story says that it was march 9th when kim jong il issued an order to set up such a bureau. either way to this day office 39 is the department that collects and manages

the cam family's secret plans to. talk to any problem of north korean access and that all tell you that your 30 day it is absolutely crucial in earnings residence for the north korean regime it's absolutely flights will take away everything collapses. here in new york the united nations imposed and monitored the sanctions against north korea an entity as important as office 39 surely ought to be at the top of prescribed organizations. office $39.00 is is normally talk to. north korean defectors we don't really see office 13 going into our investigations instead we're looking at the north korean banks in the shell. traditionally

operate over seas in 3rd countries to generate foreign currency and then that money is sent back to north korea. the office 39 is never mentioned in official documentation but it's money raising activities. worked in cambodia a world heritage site over 2 and a half 1000000 people visit the ancient buddhist temple complex every year. selfies for the tourists hard currency for cambodia. tourism is by far the largest sector of the economy here and colbert's operating company earned more than $100000000.00 in 2018 a lucrative business and one that north korea is cashing in on.

right next to the entrance to the temples is a museum that opened in 2015 at its heart is a 3 d. painting depicting the history of the camero empire in monumental images. throngs of tourists are guided through here every day so 7 hard up there. nothe quality think this isn't a pentair like how one man and woman are painting. and constructed it was. then the us colony and then not going in understand them. circumventing un sanctions north korea not only built the complex but also financed it in return pyongyang pockets all the takings for the 1st 10 years after that profits will be shed $5050.00 'd. the north korean direct to didn't want to appear . on camera but he did tell us that the museum makes about $7000000.00

a year in entrance fees a figure he expects to trouble in the near future at the end. in the evening after the museum closes the north koreans throw another set of doors open for the tourists with cameras not welcome inside the restaurant we film in secret you to be here and here we have a reversion. to the tables are almost always fully booked. richard you really just. treat you know you're here to fill you in concord and you through. your hearing. through. the many boasts north korean specialties such as cold noodles and sea cucumber the price is a surprisingly high by cambodian standards with main courses costing up to $50.00.

the restaurant is especially popular among tourists from china and south korea most of the young women who work here are students from pyongyang. they live and sleep above the restaurant and in many cases and not allowed to leave the premises for years. every evening at the same time they change their outfits and get ready for the big show. was. leading a week. to meet. their a 113 north. in restaurants like this worldwide 3 of them in cambodia they're

believed to make several $1000000.00 a year but the waitresses don't get paid a cent the big bucks westen hard currency flow directly into the regime's secret coffers. i. this is just one example of north korea's systematic exploitation of its own population. north korean workers a deployed around the world even in the european union such as here in poland we found north korean work brigades on a building site they were promised good wages and decent working conditions only to be treated like slaves. in the evening after a 12 hour shift the workers the bussed back to their hostels. was

. monitored around the clock by north korean agents. that one of them however decided to talk to us. when i was so no problem coming here on your own. you know on sundays we can go out alone. and they're going to what would happen if you got caught. played accuse me of this and that and i'd be interrogated by north korean state security here in poland. if they were not satisfied they'd send me back to pyongyang for further and. irrigation and

i might even get put in prison. and so you have a job here. i came here to make money. no matter how hard i work like can't make money. working conditions are miserable we have no freedom we have to spend our lives crammed together in groups so you're probably aware that they keep almost all of our wages we only get a fraction you know. i'm in my thirty's and my wife and daughter are at home. next to nothing but i have to do this for them and i have no choice in a. modern day slavery north korea sends well trained to workers to poland to toil away in

shipyards and on construction sites the workers families are effectively held hostage in north korea if a worker flees their relatives back home will often face severe punishment the workers have paid just 90 year. the rest goes to the regime as it cashes in for kim . largely unnoticed by the international community north korea has sent laborers all over the world believed to number up 215-0000 in all about 40000 of them are in russia and up to 100000 in china north koreans also work in kuwait. cambodia mongolia amman. the united arab emirates and in a number of african countries the un has become aware of this income for pyongyang and is. determined to drain the source's. experts estimate that the regime makes up

to $1000000000.00 a year this way. now and where ever money is earned it ends up at office 39. dollars it conducts money transactions with absolute authority to. defect to say the office is directly controlled by kim jong and manages the leadership secret accounts what's called the palace economy. but where exactly in pyongyang is office 39 located and just how many millions flow into its coffers. when we asked the north korean official he and his interpreter feign ignorance.

i don't understand the question but perhaps you know more. have you ever heard of floor 39. 39 floors are we talking about high rises. office 39 is one of the best kept secrets of the kim regime only north koreans who've escaped are able to talk about it openly. so at a secret location we meet a man who used to work for the office he was based in china his task smuggling foreign currency. then he escaped his position was so important that the north korean regime has threatened to kill him. afraid of being identified he had plastic surgery to alter his face and even then he's only willing

to be filmed from behind his car or. north korea ostensibly has a planned economy. this means that the state takes care of supplying the population with food and other goods. but in north korea this system has been largely abandoned as the supply of food and goods for daily use has as such collapsed. as a result the majority of the north korean population has to be self-sufficient. and resort to the black market. to understand office 39 and the capitalist structures in place in north korea it's important to understand its history. in 1991 the world's biggest communist country the soviet union was dissolved and north korea lost one of its most important trading partners. while many formerly communist states now switched to

a marketing. anime the kims continued to further isolate themselves. in 1994 the year kim jong is succeeded his late father a devastating famine descended on the country during the great famine in the mid ninety's when the north korean starved to death do public duty distribution system collapsed witnesses describe seeing mountains of dead bodies in the streets anywhere between $1.00 to $3000000.00 north koreans. so what happens is the north koreans now knew that if there was a just as far as they could no longer trust a lot of the state. and it was the rural population in particular who had to be self-sufficient black market started to emerge known as jang madang today there are an unknown number of these markets throughout the country 400 of them are even officially licensed providing tax income for the regime. most of the buying selling

and bartering here involves food and goods from china all manner of currencies are accepted especially u.s. dollars and chinese yuan. to china and north korea share a border that is more than a 1000 kilometers long but over 80 percent of that border is not even secured with barbed wire. people in the border region are subject to little control by the state and they enjoy substantial trade with china this trade is the basis for the black market in north korea. the biggest beneficiaries from the informal economy are government officials in pyongyang because of their loyalty although mainly out of financial self-interest the regime permits them to trade and over the years they've become wealthy they sell luxury

goods smuggle room materials and. in real estate they're called door to masters of money and enjoy the luxury and freedom afforded to them by the regime but their loyalty comes at a price. many donors who hold senior government positions including at office 39. like this man who's been living in hiding in seoul since he fled the north. while growing up in the ninety's he witnessed how north korea developed increasingly capitalist structures before his escape he was responsible for exports likely the office's most profitable business fearing reprisals from the regime he likewise does not wish to be recognized.

in. his home you have my position and a rank within the organization was management employee. but when they knew. i was in charge of foreign trade or. whether departments that did trade with europe. sure a lot of them in fact muds. hamburg germany until a few years ago the north korean state insurance company k n i c had a branch in an innocuous looking apartment block in the city. from here 6 north korean officials made deals with major european insurers. or home. office 39 has a department for foreign insurance policies this department conducts insurance

fraud you. for example they used to reinsure russian m 18 helicopters that were nearing the end of their operational lives. already sumi. in concrete terms this department signed contracts with large european insurance firms there's a chevy initially they would pay the insurance premiums say $5000.00 a month. at eventually the helicopters were blown up or set on fire to collect the insurance some. reason and that amounted to maybe 2000000 dollars and even months along when you know. it was. just one case among many in 2015 the european union added the k n i c to it sanctions list accusing the company of co financing pyongyang's nuclear

weapons program via office that 9 experts estimate that wrecked helicopters and similar tricks helped the kim regime break in several $100000000.00. north korea uses its global network of embassies to ferry money back to pyongyang government officials enjoying diplomatic immunity transport the money in cash in their flight baggage a simple but efficient way of ensuring the funds keep open flowing. through the embassies say differently from the sim but that's also mainly ceremonial. the 2 things of this financial is also illegal mainly. north korean diplomats are basically ears for came. into for the worst of this is where they may be drug lords and maybe weapons smugglers but they carry definitive

passwords so they called us and. providing military supply training. much of that has been through north korea's embassies particularly in africa the middle east all the countries in the middle east. syrian arab republic as the greatest levels of prohibited cooperation with north korean military and. puffiness the father of the current syrian dictator had been on friendly terms with the north korean leader kim il song since the 1960 s. pyongyang supplied syria with military personnel as well as weapons and ammunition in its war against israel. an important source of income which exists to this day.

using tactics resembling those of 18th century pirates office 39 operates cargo ships under folds flags and fake names according to the un this is enabled north korea to send large quantities of weapons and military equipment to syria. between 201220178 says at least 40 shipments of prohibited cargo from north korea passed through the suez canal but then the u.n. managed to have one of the deliveries intercepted. so we've found something called go on its way to syria these are super resistant tiles involves which could be used in chemical weapons development but also missile fuel is highly corrosive such tal's could be used for ballistic missile programs as well the bill of lading

clearly gave as an address in syria to stop bush from company for serious scientific studies research some to the s.s. all see which is responsible for serious ballistic missile and chemical weapons development program. the russian state insists the chemical weapons produced in the s.s. labs have been used by syrian dictator bashar al assad against his own people for years. one 3rd of all buildings in syria have been destroyed the regime in damascus has been planning for the time off to the civil war ends and hopes to receive billions of dollars from international danas for the country's reconstruction. the armies of work has required a come from north korea has formally agreed by the 2 countries at a meeting in june 29th seen here to pyongyang is looking forward to a lucrative business. the money to buy office $39.00 it goes straight into the

coffers of the leadership. it is used on the one hand to fight for the next 3 items it is used to pay for the dimmer see these beds cars that somehow found their way into the earth korea despite the sanctions but it also is also used in this is probably more important to deliver the best actors you can you can trade. as early estimate avi's came in john ill start a training the most talent as children in terms of method medical bill. if he's a programmer abilities to be called cyber hackers they're also good money or ransomware like other crime fighters for example is considered to call from the north koreans it is the biggest cyber attack the world has ever seen hundreds of thousands of computers around the world in about $150.00 countries rendered useless now the u.s.

government is publicly placing the blame for that cyber assault uniquely dubbed want to cry squarely on kim jong un's army of hackers british intelligence officials and microsoft had previously concluded the groups associated with the north korean regime were responsible for the want to cry hack. in seoul i t specialists have north korean hackers squarely in the sites simon choi works as a consultant to south korean intelligence agencies. to the washington we've been following the activities of north korean hackers for 10 years now in the past they've been primarily attacking the south korean ministry of defense and other government agencies but since around 2015 it's become clear that their interest has shifted to international banks. north korea has unlimited access to the internet to their name 1000 ip addresses available to the country many are used

by north korean computer specialists to attack other countries experts say that between 601000 $300.00 hakas are at work for the regime an estimated $2000000000.00 may have been diverted by a young highly trained north korean hakas to fund the country's nuclear weapons program. north korea is changing an impoverished communist state is now a country with a highly flexible shadow economy. and as with commercial companies all that matters are american dollars cash for kim the workers here and now slaving away not for the revolution but for the wealth of their leader and his cronies as the gap between rich and poor widens. while the population in pyongyang enjoy constant growth in prosperity the u.n. says that 40 percent of the rural population still suffer from malnutrition in

order to control its people the regime employs oldskool or sora tarion rural north korea's underground economy on the other hand is 21st century capitalist dandong china. north korea's gateway to the world and a symbol of how futile the un's efforts have been to dry up kim sources of cash. 'd the sino korean friendship bridge across the yalu river has connected the 2 nations since 1943 every day trucks queue up in front of the customs checkpoint it brings together smugglers traders and also the agents and entrepreneurs of office 39 all of them hoping to make a quick deal here. china is by far north korea's most important trading partner

according to economics experts it accounts for 90 percent of north korea's export trade. thousands of north korean women are believed to work for textile manufacturers in the dandong region. posing as businessmen and equipped with hidden cameras we film inside one such factory chinese textile companies hire north koreans because their way. ages are lower than those of the domestic workforce the seamstresses work day and night and often sleep on the company premises many are effectively locked up there for years far away from their families. will meet together with a team of labor lawyers trade experts and data specialists remco breaka has been investigating whether european brown's work with chinese companies that directly or

in directly employing north koreans. is different things are things we are actually hoping to establish was the use of north korean workers in chinese factories. really to our surprise is yes we do have north korean workers working on the slave like this is inside the more than that chinese factories outsource to north korean factories in north korea. to prove the existence of the significance. of north korean slave labor in the supply chain of some of the rules leading clothing companies to. break his team took an especially close look at one chinese textile company with the french name best easton when the firm's own website states that it relies on low labor cost and abundant human resources the list of customers reads like

a who's who of international fashion brands the bone dest website features this men's jackets described as korean imported the buttons bed the words amani jeans using trade databases break his team analyzed phone this business dealings between 20132019 the databases use customs information showing which goods to send back and forth between firms in different. treece well what happens is that china sends the material to mixers and close to north korea. and then. those clothes are shipped to the netherlands or to germany or to america. with interest or between 2013 and december 26th in bomb they're sent around $10000000.00 worth of fabrics and more materials

to north korea during the same period the company received finished garments worth almost 25 $1000000.00 from north korea. customs classify textiles by so-called harmonized system codes a lady sweater for example will have a different h.s. coat than a pair of men's jeans. we take a look at h.s. code 62001 it stands for men's anoraks and coats including the armani jacket on the website. between 2013 and december 26th jane vaughan dest imported products with this code worth $12000000.00 from north korea the same code is also found with deliveries from von dest to europe and the u.s. among the customers and armani. armani jackets that look exactly like the one on

the von dest website can also be bought in europe this one costs 219 year olds it's impossible to prove beyond doubt that garments like this one made in north korea but at the same time can it be ruled out. we asked the companies implicated to comment armani's response we confirm the desk is one of our suppliers and as such is regularly subject to checks and inspections the result of these checks being that. no finished product some money fat shit in north korea like or lost appliance it is also required to declare which subcontractors it uses and where these are concerned it is also the case that none are in north korea. we also wrote to vote dest the company offered no explanation as to why and on walks scale it trades with north korea. one thing can be said for some big name fashion brands

have the goods manufactured by a chinese company that does business with north korea a country where workers have no rights where human life counts for little or nothing and break his investigation shows that this is far from an isolated case chinese firms use factories in north korea to produce goods with hundreds of millions of donnas. for years and years we've heard testimony from north korean escapees who are in concentration camps that they have been forced or to produce textile for the export markets for famous western brands and i think for the 1st time western able to corroborate as an external source on the through the testimony . in this same database i found the. department of bureaucratic departments that is responsible for managing the production of textiles for one of the concentration camps aside from that.

it means that we know that only by close produced by forced laborers maybe even slave labor remain may even buy clothes in the netherlands in germany or for your in america was made in concentration camps by people who will never see the light of day again these are the kinds of constance you don't leave into your guts that is just too horrific. to to prove their worth and were complicit. hundreds of thousands of men and women secretly ensure the survival of the pyongyang regime their future is a sacrificed for the luxury a slice styles of the powers that be and also for western consumerism and convenience kim jong un is perhaps not so much an unhinged dictator as a coolly calculating businessman who runs his country like

a company. and office $39.00 plenty of business with everything and everyone including us. attractive. flawless. fake. these beauties are 100 percent digital they don't have to put on airs or watch the way they have followers on instagram and represent the biggest fashion leaving our

digital avatar the ideal models. story that people the world on for g.w. or facebook and twitter. to date and in touch. different monkey island. women are in charge. of the archipelago has a matriarchal system for centuries. of society. differently. and how sustainable this culture. is over.

more than w. . thanks. this is d w news live from the fust public accusation the us points the finger directly at the saudi crown prince said the u.s. releases intelligence showing presence mohammad bin sultan like they approved the killing of journalist jamal khashoggi also coming up to 300 schoolgirls all missing in nigeria the region 2nd mass kidnapping in 10 days president the stroll the

police and military a joint mission to find one thinks of fun too.