her son, keel silver may. i'm 2nd. thank you for the secret department that finance is north korea's nuclear weapons program with organized crime that is on our theories report are coming up next. are watching the news life from berlin. i will be back at the top of the hour with more in the meantime. remember, you can always get all the latest news from around the world on our website. that is d w dot com, really for me and the entire team in the newsroom. thank you so much for your company. ah, ah, specie an explanation. looking to do this. we'll help in your research in the pacific region. wales starts

on z, w. ah, ah no serious game of thrones, that without the dragon's is, harris socratic society is capitalists. and everything is geared to make sure that there's as much cash for came as as possible. aah! capitalism. money is the life blood flowing through the vein. it's no different in north korea. bureau $39.00 is involved in everything that makes money for north korea, selling arms smuggling of drugs, conser feeding of us bills. this is about hundreds of millions of dollars a year. when the tide to did everything, everything all we were told was $8.00.

the all ah north korea, a pariah state large the isolated from the rest of the world. a dictatorship shrouded in mystery. ah. every day the country statement, media praise the heroic deeds of the supreme leader ah. time seemed to stand still here. ah. in truth numbers moved to we are, has the full largest. so me in the world, the 3 generations, the king family has ruled the country by divine. right. and with an iron fist,

north korea military. oh, no, it's outdated, but contain nuclear weapons earning the country severe sanction. how does the regime manage to survive? and how have the kim's amassed enough money to threaten the world with the most powerful weapon of all the me on the other side of the world in the netherlands, a history professor is working on answer to these questions. ramco breaker from the university of leyden has been studying the end at

a country and it's true for years. he says, our image of north korea is mistaken. north isn't what it tells us. it is just look at the country functions and at the highest level. what is the main goal of, of the government of the regime i should say, is to make money. estimate cash for kim. what intrigues me personally is how north korea managers to make money. one of the questions we are stuck with says, where does domenico, how much money just for you make for the leadership in pyongyang? questions like these a dangerous, the north korean regime. send a letter of indictment under my name to 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 damage the supreme dick and see if the supreme leader this sounds like it's

a funny crime. right. damaging the supreme difference of somebody in north korea parish death, county a threat not to be taken lightly. remco breakers investigations threatened to disrupt north korea's sources of hard currency. the country 1st nuclear bomb tests in 2006 prompted its international isolation. without legal sources of income, the regime took to raising money illegally. ah, 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 monitored by an international panel of experts. the group consists of 8 members, including former intelligent military and financial experts for their own safety. they work away from the public. hi. only the coordinator, hugh griffith is willing to be con camera. the sanctions have

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

in the regime opted to go for the bomb in 2005. it's officially revealed that it had nuclear weapons as protection against attacks from foreign powers. specifically the united states. i union home to the government and to the country in the shiny new apartment block line, spotlessly clean showcase 70. this is where p on young's upper class reside. the city is home to 3000000 people, but only those who are considered loyal to the regime. if anyone wanting to enter the capital from the outside needs the permit. don't show work that union economic research institute. he's authorized to talk to journalists about the sanctions, for example, on to didn't want to leave it. it's impossible to sanction

a country completely, always, even now we trade and obtain foreign currency on our banks 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. i plan on you to get him on the sanctions that have been put in north korea are extremely strict. i mean just enough in the country that has been sanctioned, bore diversity him or more strictly in the same time they're no longer working. ready there is a huge problem with cf odyssey and using sanctions to tie and half the regime modifies behavior because we're not sanctioning the one entity that

earns most of his money. kesha the flood financially. this keeps a life. many high ranking defectors from north korea talk about a secret government department that said to administer the regime secret funds, kim il sung, and his son, kim joan, is reportedly set it up in the late 1917th and equipped it with wide ranging powers . its tasks using calanda, stine hard currency transactions to secure an independent power base for the kims, while also raising money for the nuclear bomb. the leaders personal luxury, its name office, 39, only 200 kilometers to the southeast. so south korea's type a modern 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 her young son used to be a north korean diplomat. he escaped in 1991. he went on to become deputy director of south korea institute for national security strategy, which employees north korean defectors together, valuable information. few people know more about the kim denise. these workings kimmy joe legend has just that. when kim jong il came to power, he renamed the finance department as the workers party central committee. it was now called office 39 and because it was located on floor 3 in room 9 from or another story says that it was march 9th, when kim jong il issued, in order to set up such a bureau. and either way to this day who office 39 is the department that collects

and managers the him families secret funds. for me talk to any prominent north korea next and all. tell you that bureau, 39 is absolutely crucial in earnings refuse for screen regime. it's absolutely fine, it'll 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 organization office. 39 is normally talked about by north korean defectors, we don't really see office 39 in our investigations. instead, we're looking at the north korean banks in the shell. companies traditionally

operate overseas in 3rd countries to generate foreign currency and then that money is sent back to north korea. office 39 is never mentioned in official documentation. money raising activities span the globe and covert in cambodia. a world heritage site over 2 and a half 1000000 people visit the ancient buddhist temple complex every year, sell fees for the tourist part currency, the condo dea in tourism is by far the largest sector of the economy here. and coal was operating company and more than $100000000.00 in 2018, a lucrative business. and one that north korea is caching in on. i

right next to the entrance to the temple is a museum that opened in 2015. at its heart, it's a 3 d painting depicting the history of the command empire in monumental images, throngs of tourists that guided through here every day. so. 7 far they from north korean, we have 50 city pants. let's how one. yeah. and from one to pen can i and who constructed it was it was a company in or no, no cody, and not put in contact them. i can venting 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 shared $5050.00. the north korean direct to didn't want appear on camera. but he did tell us that

the museum makes about $7000000.00 a year in entrance sees a figure he expects to treble in the near future. ah, in the evening after the museum closes, the north koreans throw another set of doors open for the tourists with cameras. welcome inside the restaurant. we film in secret. yeah, we had a reservation yesterday. where did you name? did you have? the tables are almost always to leave books and we can, we can okay. them or the menu buzz north korean specialties such as cold noodles and see cucumber. the price is surprisingly high by cambodian standards with main causes 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 off 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 changed their outfit and get ready for the big show. me. i the there are 130 north korean restaurants like this. worldwide. 3 of them in cambodia

. they believed to make several $1000000.00 a year. but the waitresses didn't get paid a sense the big bucks, west and hard currency flow directly into the regime secret coffers. the. this is just one example of north korea is systematic exploitation of its own population. north korean workers 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 bust back to their hospitals,

the rest of them monitored around the clock by north korean agents. ah one of them however, decided to talk to me. one of those, no problem coming here on your own. you know, on sundays we can go out alone when you get to what would happen if you got caught, once, have to play to 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 interrogation with you guys. when i

might even get put in prison. something in come get, did you get to turn you fishing? well, you have a job here. i came here to make money. it's all, no matter how hard i work, i can't make money. couldn't the working conditions are miserable on me all you've done the wish and i 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 reaction. you know, i will give you a 100 years. you know, i'm in my thirties and my wife and daughter are at home. have to give you my are next to nothing. it's not on, but i have to do this for them. i have no choice here, didn't, and couldn't go book. you'll see the modern day slavery as north korea sense, well trained 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 work is the pay just $90.00 euros a month. 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. believe to number up 285-0000 in all about 40000 of them are in russia and up 280-0000 in china. north koreans also work in q 8, malaysia, cambodia, mongolia, amman, cattle, the united arab emirates, and in a number of african countries. the u. n. has become aware of this income for p on young and is determined to drain the sources. experts estimate that the regime

makes up to $1000000000.00 a year this way on those on how and wherever money is earned. it ends up at office 39. you order. it conducts money transactions with absolute authority from one in which a defect to say the office is directly controlled by kim jones and manages the leadership secret account. what's called the palace economy. where exactly and young is office 39 located and just how many millions flow into its coffers. ah, 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 floor. are we talking about high rises? 050. 39 is one of the best kept secrets of the kim regime. only north koreans who've escaped or able to talk about it openly about me. so it's 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 had threatened to kill him. afraid of being identified, he had plastic surgery to alter his faith. and even then he's only willing to be

filmed from behind me. jones hi is going to north korea ostensibly has a planned economy. what does that mean? that the state takes care of supplying the population with food and the other? good. no. but in north korea, this system has been largely abandoned me. the supply of food and goods for daily use has as such, collapse more as a result. just the majority of the north korean population has to be self sufficient and resort to the black market. whereas it's hard to understand office 9 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 last one of its most important trading partners. well, many formally communist state now switched to

a market on a me the kims continued to further isolate themselves in 1994. the year kim joan is succeeded. his late father, a devastating famine, descended on the country during the great famine in the mid nineties, by the north korean start to death. the public distribution system collapse with us is described seeing mountains of dead bodies and in the streets anywhere between $1.00 to $3000000.00 screens died. so what happens is the north koreans now knew that if they wanted to verify, they could no longer trust or rely on the states. and it was the rural population in particular, who had to be self sufficient. black market started to emerge known as jung medina . today, there are an unknown number of these market throughout the country, $400.00 of them, or even officially license providing tax income for the regime. most of the buying,

selling and bartering here involves food and goods from china. all manner of current things are accepted, especially us dollars and chinese. you can either speak to china and north korea shera border. that is more than a 1000 kilometers long fuel. but over 80 percent of that border is not even secured with barbed wire to people in the border region are subject to little control by the state police. and they enjoy substantial trade with china. to in this trade is the basis for the black market in north korea. i've always, ah, the biggest beneficiaries from the informal economy and government officials in pyongyang. because of their loyalty though, mainly out of financial self interest, the regime permits them to trade. and over the years they've become wealthy,

they sell luxury, good muggle, raw materials and in didn't really take their cold don't shoot masters the money and enjoy the luxury and freedom afforded to them by the regime. but that loyalty comes at a price to many dollars. you hold senior government positions including office, 39, me like this man who's been living in hiding in sol 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 export nike, the officers most profitable business ferrying reprisals from the regime. he likewise does not wish to be recognised me.

high 100 in my position and rank within the organization was management employee to get her son in a name i was in charge of foreign trade. it will be joe with a department that did trade with europe by sure. a lot of them, in fact, much hamburg germany until a few years ago, the north korean state insurance company k. and i see had a branch in an innocuous looking apartment block in the city. from here, 6, north korean official may deal with major european insurers at home to home office. 39 has

a department for foreign insurance policies in jungle. this department conduct insurance fraud on either on the, on how to get on them. for example, they used to re insure russian m 18 helicopters that were nearing the end of their operational lives or did somebody that hit her in concrete terms. this department signed contracts with large european insurance firms and they had told me we had initially, they would pay the insurance premiums a $5000.00 a month or so. eventually the helicopters were blown up or set on fire to collect the insurance. some punish, kinda worried students and that amounted to maybe $2000000.00 an eating month. when you do that, i was just one case among many in 2015, the european union added the k, and i see to it sanctions lest accusing the company of co financing pyongyang

nuclear weapons program via office. $39.00 experts estimate that wrecked helicopters and similar tricks helped the kim regime brake 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 on flowing me for nothing. the embassies half a different ethnic function that this often mainly ceremonial, but their true function is financial. it's also illegal, mainly screen this minutes are basically cast carriers for kim they're in different areas. they're businessman. they may be drink flores and maybe weapons

smugglers. but they carry a different passwords, say contacts, and providing military supplies, training, and much of that has been done through north korea's embassies, particularly in africa and the middle east side of all the countries in the middle east. currently, syrian, our republic has the greatest levels of prohibited cooperation with north korean military entities. her face, i'll ask that the father if the current syrian dictator had been on friendly terms with the north korean leader, kim il sung. since the 900 sixty's pin yang 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, ah,

using tactics resembling those of 18th century pirates office, 39 operates congo ships under full 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 with prohibited congo from north korea passed through the suez canal. but then the us managed to have one of the deliveries intercepted. so we found something called go on its way to syria. these were acid resistance. titles involves which could be used in chemical weapons development, but also missile fuel is highly corrosive. such tiles could be used for ballistic missile program as well. the bill of lading clearly gave,

has an address in syria established from the company, syria scientific studies research center. the s s l c. which is responsible for a serious ballistic missile chemical weapons development program. the russians that insist the chemical weapons produced in the s s l. c's. labs have been used by theory and dictated shot against his own people. for years, many of those who died in agony, one 3rd of all buildings in syria have been destroyed. the regime and damascus has been planning for the time after the civil war ends and hopes to receive billions of dollars from international donors for the countries of reconstruction. the armies of work as required to come from north korea as formerly agreed by the 2 countries at a meeting in june 2019. here to pyongyang is looking forward to a lucrative business. the money that earns office 39,

it goes straight into the coffers. the leadership issue on the one end to provide for luxury items, it is used to pay for them. and the mercedes benz car stats somehow found their way into korea despite the sanctions. but it also is also used and this is probably more important to deliver the best hackers. you can, you can barely estimate, eighty's came and young, ill started training the most talent as children in terms of mathematical abilities and program abilities to become cyber anchors. they're also good money earners. ransomware, like the one cried fires, for example, is considered to come 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 doug, want to cry squarely on kim jones army of hackers, british intelligence officials and microsoft had previously concluded that groups associated with the north korean regime were responsible for the want to cry hack. in soul i t specialists have north korean hackers squarely in the sites. simon, choice works as the consultant for south korean intelligence agencies could washing and learn. 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 are key since around 2015. it's become clear that their interest has shifted to international bank, couldn't he? knows korea has limited access to the internet with only 1000 ip addresses available to the country. many,

a used by north korean computer specialists to attack other countries. experts say that between 601300 hackers are at work for the regime. an estimated 2000000000 dollars may have been diverted by young, highly trained north korean hackers to fund the countries nuclear weapons program. the north korea is changing. an impoverished communist state is now a country with highly flexible shadow economy. and as with commercial companies, all that matters are american dollars. cash for came 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 widen. ah, well, the population impugn yang, enjoy constant growth and prosperity. the un says that 40 percent of the rural

population still suffering from malnutrition. in order to control it. people, the regime, employees, old school or source harriann rule. north korea's underground economy on the other hand is 21st century capitalist dando, china north korea gateway to the wild, understandable of how futile the un efforts have been to dry up can fosters of cash . ready mm, the sign, a korean friendship bridge across the jani river has connected the 2 nations since 943 every day, trucks q up in front of the customer checkpoint. it brings together smuggler's traders and also the agents and entrepreneurs of office $39.00, only them hoping to make a quick deal. here. china is by far north korea as most important trading partner.

according to economics experts, it accounts for 90 percent of north korea's export trade. the thousands of north korean women are believed to work for textile manufacturers in the dunden region. posing as businessmen and equipped with hidden cameras. we film inside one such factory, chinese textile companies, higher north koreans because there were pages are lower than those of the domestic workforce. these 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. together with a team of labor, lawyers, trade experts and data specialists, remco broker has been investigating whether europe in brown work with chinese

companies that directly or indirectly employee. north korean is what we found different things. and one of the things we were actually hoping to establish was to use of north korean workers in chinese factories. we found, really, to our surprise, is that yes, we do have north korean workers working under safe like conditions in china. and the more than that, chinese factories outsource to north korean centuries in north korea. managed to prove the existence of a significant amount of north spring slave labor in the supply chain of some of the world's leading clothing companies. brokers team took an especially close look at one chinese textile company with the french name von dest, or east, and wind 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 whole desk website features this men's jackets described as korean imported. the buttons bear the woods money jeans using trade databases, brokers, team analyzed on this business dealings between 2013 and 20. 19 the databases use customs information, showing which goods to send back and forth between firms in different. so what happens is that china sense the material to make certain types of clothes, to north korea. one love they are the ship beck in the same container. and then you have finished us, those clothes are, again, shipped to say the netherlands, or to germany, or to america. and from there, they're distributed into our stores. between 2013 and december 2016 loan dest sent

around $10000000.00 worth of fabrics enrollment here real to north korea. during the same period, the company received finished garments with almost $25000000.00 from north korea. customs classify textiles by so called harmonized system codes. a ladies sweater, for example, will have a different h s code than a pair of men's genes. we take a look at h. s code 621. it stands for men's anoraks and coats, including the money jacket on the website. between 2013 and december 2016 von dest imported products, with this code with $12000000.00 from north korea. the same code is also found with deliveries from vol, dest to europe, and the u. s. among the customers, diesel and the money. money jackets that look exactly like the one on the desk

website can also be bought in europe. this one costs 219 euros. it's impossible to prove beyond doubt that government site this one a made in north korea. but at the same time, can it be ruled out? we asked the companies implicated to comment amante's response. we confirmed that phone. dest is one of our suppliers, and such is regularly subject to checks and inspections. the results of these checks being no finished products, the manufactured in north korea. like all our suppliers, it is also required to declare which subcontractors it uses, and where these are concerned. it is also the case that none or in north korea wheels directive own dest, the company offered no explanation as to why and on what scale it trades with north korea. one thing can be said for certain big name,

fashion brands have their 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 breakers investigation shows that this is far from an isolated case chinese firm, these factories in north korea to produce goods with hundreds of millions of dollars. for years and years we've heard testimony from north korean s. k fees who were in concentration came today have been forced to produce textile for the export market for famous western grants. i think for the 1st time i've been able to corroborate that for an external source or not through a testimony in this database, i found the department of bureaucratic departments that is responsible for managing the production of textiles for once the concentration comes outside from

them. i mean, just as we do by close, produced by force diverse, maybe even slave labor. we may even buy clothes in the netherlands in germany or through europe in america that was made in concentration. camps by people never see the light of day. again, these are the kinds of camps that you don't leaf until your death. that is just to her refix, to, to put in worse. and we're complacent. ah, hundreds of thousands of men and women secretly ensure the survival of the young regime. their futures is sacrificed to the luxurious lifestyle of the powers that be and also for western consumerism and convenience. kim joan own is perhaps not so much and unhinged dictator as a coolie calculating businessman who run this country like

a company. ah, and office 39. does plenty of business with everything and everyone including us. i i oh, the what's going on here? oh, no. house of your very own, from a printer computer games that are healing my dog needs electricity. explains, delivers fact, and shows what the future whole living and the digital world

shift in 15 minutes on dw the this we feel will focus on education. how can northern nigeria gets more children into the classrooms? we discussed. we issue a house in south africa. all the north. we asked teens about their anderson. 77 percent. oh, me a there and david and this is climate change briggs. it backs. happiness in 3

books for you, you'll get smarter for free. you got on the news . ah, this is news lines from berlin, columbia struggles to restore order. the president militarize several cities after more people are killed in demonstrations against police, violence and inequality. the un costs for negotiation to stop the situation from spiraling further out of control. also coming up with a.