The infiltration of North Korean spies into South Korean society has always been one of the common plots of Korean movies, although the plot may be exaggerated, but the infiltration activities are indeed real, even after the formal establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in the nineties, the author today wants to introduce a very rare form of Choi Jungnam Kang Yeon-jung couple espionage case detected by the South Korean counterintelligence department in 1997.
South Korean movie "Double Agent" reflecting the story of North Korean spy couples
The reason why it is extremely rare is because since North Korean spies began to infiltrate South Korea, most of the spies sent are married individual spies, so that if the spies defect, their spouses who remain in the country will be executed as hostages, and the reason why a couple will not be sent out as spies is also because the chance of spy defection will be multiplied. After entering the nineties, such a combination of spy couples still appeared, because compared to spies acting alone, spies with husband and wife identities are obviously more suitable for hiding their identities. By 1997, South Korea's counterintelligence department had targeted ten North Korean spies for couples.
Choi Jung-nam (최정남), born in May 1962 in Uiju-gun, North Pyongan Province, was developed as a spy by the People's Army intelligence department in April 1984 while studying at Shariwon University, and joined the party organization in July 1989. Kang Yeon-jung (강연정), born in October 1969 in a high-ranking family in Pyongyang, graduated from high school in September 1986 and became a spy in the intelligence department of the People's Army, and joined the party organization in August 1994. In November 1990, Choi Jung-nam and Kang Yeon-jung registered their marriage in Pyongyang, and in January 1992 gave birth to their son, Choi Nam-hyuk (name meaning Korean Revolution).
In order to be sent to South Korea on a spy mission, the couple received nearly 10 years of spy training at the Pyongyang Political School, whose subjects mainly include: ideological and political study, physical training, field survival training, long-distance communication, South Korea's political and economic situation, standard Korean Chinese, reading Korean textbooks and current affairs weeklies, watching Korean TV, drama, news and entertainment programs. In addition, the couple was also sent to Northeast China and Beijing to receive some Chinese language training and overseas environmental adaptation training.
According to the post-mortem account, the main tasks that the couple were sent to South Korea to carry out include:
South Korean television reported the news of the espionage case
1. Connect with spies Gao Yingfu and Shen Zhengxiong, teach Shen Zhengxiong how to crack the new People's Army agent communication code, how to use the new walkie-talkie, tell them about winning the Motherland Reunification Award, and formulate a plan to paralyze the Seoul subway in an emergency;
2. Contact Xu, professor emeritus of the Department of Sociology, Seoul National University, and develop Professor of Sociology at Seoul University Kim (60 years old) to join the organization;
3. Contact with Jung (35 years old), a cadre of the Ulsan Trade Union affiliated to the Korea National Trade Union, and Park Mou (34 years old), a member of the Jeonju City Council;
4. Deploy small arms depots throughout Korea to prepare for future uprisings;
In addition to this, the couple was also ordered to perform a number of secondary tasks (not mandatory), which included:
1. Investigate the identity of the residence of Hwang Changye, who defected to South Korea, and provide intelligence support for the ongoing assassination operation;
2. Collect political intelligence such as the trend of the South Korean presidential election;
3. Collect schedules of Korean planes, trains and buses;
4. Try to obtain excellent corn seeds cultivated by Professor Kim Soon-kwon of Kyungpook University;
5. Try to obtain the electronic ID card of Korean residents that is being piloted.
Forged identity cards used by the two
At 7 p.m. on July 30, 1997, Choi Jung-nam and Kang Yeon-jung boarded a spy ship departing from the port of Nampo with two pistols, 30 million won in cash, forged resident identity cards, and fake police documents, and officially began their infiltration journey into Nampo, while their son Nam Hyuk was left to study at the Pyongyang School for Cadres' Children.
The spy ship departed from the port of Nampo and traveled south to the outer high seas, then bypassed Jeju Island, and finally approached Geoje Island from the high seas near Tsushima Island in Japan. Although U.S. spy satellites have been monitoring the port of Nanpu, with the technology of the time, it is difficult to track if the spy ship mixes with ordinary fishing boats after going to sea. At around 9 p.m. on August 2, the spy ship unloaded a 5-ton mini-submarine on the high seas of Geoje Island. Although the ROK military has a radar base off the coast of Geoje Island, the mini-submarine was not detected by ROK radar because it began diving from 12 nautical miles away.
When the mini-submarine sailed to the sea 500m off the coast of Geoje Island, Choi Jung-nam and Kang Yeon-jung changed into diving suits and left the mini-submarine, and landed at about 11 p.m. on the coast of Gekusari, Geoje City, Gyeongsangnam-do. Although the ROK military has stepped up its surveillance of maritime infiltration since the 1996 Gangneung armed espionage infiltration, after all, the entire southern coastline of South Korea is too long and tortuous, and there are people inside to report information, so it is generally difficult to intercept such maritime infiltration.
After Choi Jung-nam and Kang Yeon-jung sneaked into South Korea, they first spent 20 days in Gyeongju, Busan, Gwangju and other places, made contact with the intended target, and conducted environmental adaptation training, and finally found a foothold in Seoul's Guro Dong on August 23. Since they had never been to South Korea before, the two made a lot of jokes during the environmental adaptation training. For example, on August 3, when the two took a bus to Majinsan Hot Spring on Geoje Island, Gyeongsangnam-do, they paid 1,000 won (960 won), but did not take 40 won change from the coin box next to the driver. The driver, who felt strange about this, looked at them a few more times, which made the couple tremble with nervousness for a while.
The Czech-made CZ-83 pistol used by North Korean spies
Although he learned Korean Chinese under the guidance of a teacher from South Korea, his lack of confidence in his Korean accent caused Choi Jung-nam and Kang Yeon-jung to dare not speak when they went to the restaurant several times, but just stared at each other. In mid-August, when Cui Zhengnan was talking to a strange lady in a restaurant, he was reprimanded by the other party: "The way young people talk is really strange enough!" In addition, because she did not know how to distinguish between sanitary napkins and baby diapers, when Jiang Yanzhen went to the supermarket to buy sanitary napkins, she mistakenly bought baby diapers twice.
During their 20-day wandering, Choi Jung-nam and Kang Yeon-jung also set up small arsenals in Asan Folk Craft Village in Gyeongju City, Gwanaksan in Seoul, and Jangjunbonggenrim Park in Bongcheon-dong, Gwanak-dong, Seoul, respectively, which contained weapons such as 3 Czech-made CZ-83 pistols, 170 rounds of pistol ammunition, venom guns disguised as Parker pens, bayonets disguised as ballpoint pens, 205 bottles of poison of 10 different types, and other spy equipment such as walkie-talkies and random number tables.
After staying in Seoul, Choi went out to meet with the agent Shen Jung-woong who lurked here six times. Sim Jung-woong, a veteran local spy who had been lurking for nearly 40 years, joined the underground party organization when he was a middle school student, influenced by the left-wing movement at the time, and was ordered to lurk in the Seoul subway company for a long time, his mission was to destroy the Seoul subway network when needed. The two men met with instructions on how to crack the newly used People's Army communications code, how to use the newly arrived high-powered radio, and sending him news of the National Unification Award and a letter of congratulations from the North Korean leader.
Cui also taught Shen Zhengxiong a new emergency destruction scheme of the subway, that is, using timed explosives to attack the subway's catchment well, so that the pumped groundwater stored in the catchment well was re-fed into the subway. After Choi Jung-nam and Kang Yeon-jung were sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1998, Shen Jung-woong was also arrested, but was sentenced to a suspended sentence for his repentance and surrender statement on 15 August 1999, and was eventually acquitted on 15 August 2000.
Footage of escorting Choi Jung-nam released by KBS
What led to the arrest of Choi and Kang Yeon-jung was reported by Jung on October 21, 1997, when he called South Korea's state security department and said: "A man and woman came, saying they were from North Korea and saying they wanted to take me with them." The 35-year-old was a cadre of the Ulsan Alliance, South Korea's opposition party, and was still a leftist in South Korea. The reason why he went to report was because he mistakenly thought that the couple was a spy sent by the National Security Agency and wanted to label him a "North Korean spy", so he simply planned to report it, and even held a press conference to embarrass the NSA.
At the time, the South Korean National Security Agency had never sent such a straightforward (low-level) agent, so they quickly realized that the two must be genuine North Korean spies. At 11:30 a.m. on October 27, 1997, when Choi Jung-nam and Kang Yeon-jung tried to contact Jung again at the café of the Korina Hotel in Ulsan-gun, they were suddenly arrested by spies surrounding them, and it turned out that the more than 30 customers in the coffee shop were agents arranged in advance by South Korea's national security.
When taken down by the South Korean spies, Kang Yeon-jung shouted anxiously: "Honey, dear..." but Choi Jung-nam obediently stretched out his hand to handcuff the agents, without any resistance at all. It can only be said that Choi Jung-nam and Kang Yeon-jung's ability to grasp South Korean social intelligence is too lagging behind, because before their seventh meeting with Jung, the latter has already held a press conference and announced the existence of the two. If they could know this situation in time, they would not go to the old place to contact Zheng again unguardedly.
On November 20, 1997, it was not until a month after the arrest of Choi Jung-nam and Kang Yeon-jung that the South Korean media began to report on the incident on a large scale, and a few days later, the report suddenly disappeared. Until 2006, Japan's NHK published an article saying that Jiang Yanzhen committed suicide during the investigation stage because she was born into a cadre family and had a relatively firm faith. Choi Jung-nam, a third-tier city phoenix man, agreed to issue a surrender statement and later became a North Korean intelligence analyst in the intelligence headquarters of the South Korean Ministry of National Defense, which is really embarrassing.
Footage of Kang Yeon-jung's arrest broadcast by MBC
On March 14, 2004, in the 113th issue of the long-form variety show Time Machine broadcast by South Korea's MBC TV on the same day, the story of the spy case of Choi Jung-nam and Kang Yeon-jung was reproduced in the form of a farce such as "If you don't know this couple is a spy", perhaps in the eyes of South Koreans, this level of espionage is really not a threat.