Revealing the special team searching for North Korean defectors

An ordinary hotel on the banks of the Yalu River in Dandong province, China, on the border with North Korea, appears to be where Pyongyang agents listen for news and track down North Korean defectors, the Guardian reported.

The lobby of the Lifes Hotel. Photo: Guardian

The reception area of ​​Life's Hotel smells faintly of vanilla perfume. The rooms in the hotel have a fruity scent and a beautiful view of the Yalu River.

One guest rated Life's as a “really nice hotel” on popular Chinese travel website Ctrip. “It's interesting to see North Korean businessmen staying here,” the guest said.

However, the positive reviews do not describe the hotel. The 20-story building on the banks of the Yalu River is said to be one of two hotels in Dandong city that North Korea's special forces have hired to investigate and arrest defectors.

NewspaperDaily NK“The spies disguised themselves as businessmen but in fact they stayed here to search, listen for information and plan to capture people who fled the country,” a source familiar with the matter said.

Defecting from North Korea is always a gamble for those who decide to escape. Failure can lead to a bad outcome. Human Rights Watch says China is now stepping up its efforts to arrest North Koreans who illegally cross its borders. At least 41 have been arrested since July.

Some were arrested as soon as they crossed the border, while others were detained near the borders of Southeast Asian countries. According to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, North Koreans who crossed into China are not considered refugees because they entered China illegally and violated the law.

About 20,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea over the past decade. They typically cross the border through China, travel through Southeast Asia, and end up in Thailand, where they are taken to Seoul and naturalized.

Sokeel Park, a member of an organization that helps North Korean defectors, said the number of defectors has dropped from 3,000 in 2011 to 1,500 in 2016 since North Korean leader Kim Jong-un took power. The number is likely to continue to decline, with only 593 successful defections in the first six months of this year. Park said the main reason for the decline is China's tightening security.

One defector, Ji Seong-ho, recalled his arduous escape. He crossed the Tumen River and spent three months traveling 10,000km from China, through Myanmar and Laos to reach Thailand. “It was a game of life and death. I thought this would be how I would die,” Ji recalled of the haunting eight-hour journey through the jungle.

He has helped 250 more escape since he became an activist for North Korean defectors. He says the escapes are becoming more dangerous and difficult as China appears to be cracking down on the network.

A view of the river from a hotel room. Photo: Guardian

Daily NKNorth Korean agents have been using the Life Hotel as a base to stage operations to capture defectors, the newspaper said. Last year, a defector was arrested while trying to escape in Dandong. “The atmosphere in the city was quite tense,” the source said.

Staff at the hotel have denied that they house North Korean agents. “We do rent rooms to North Korean guests, but they do normal work,” said Life’s Hotel’s sales director. “We are just a hotel like any other.”

HoweverDaily NKThe Life's Hotel seems to provide a good cover for North Korean agents. They appear to be businessmen, busy communicating on their smartphones with the badges of the late leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il pinned to their chests, but in reality they are listening and investigating information.

Guardianthought this was not the right place for small talk. The reporter tried to approach a man wearing shiny black shoes and a Kim Il Sung badge and asked vaguely about kimchi and coffee. The man replied: “I don’t know, I don’t understand anything.”

Outside the vanilla-scented lobby, the hotel's sign seems to "tease" North Korean defectors trying to escape the country with the words: "New hotel, new life."

According to Dan Tri