Moscow, Pyongyang back network sending workers to Russian factories: Report

After North Korea’s sixth and last nuclear test in 2017, a UN Security Council resolution put a blanket ban on the hiring of its workers overseas and mandated their return home.

Russia and China, two permanent members of the Security Council that voted for the ban, have since been accused by South Korea and the West of noncompliance with resolutions.

Such measures, dating back to 2006, banned the flow of goods, energy, weapons and workers with North Korea.

In previous years, Russia employed North Korean labourers in its far east while many North Koreans staffing restaurants in China sent home wages that were channelled to the state treasury, rights groups have said.

North Korea is directly involved in running the network supplying workers in Russia, with officials from its Moscow embassy identified as inspecting work sites for prospective employment, the GRC report said.

“These workers do not come cheap, yet little, if any, of the money paid for their labour reaches them,” said Dyland Carter, a GRC lead investigator.

“Instead, it lines the pockets of the DPRK state,” he added, referring to North Korea by a short version of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.