North Korea Arrest Three Merchants for Selling Memory Cards
- RFA
North Korea – Authorities in the North Korean city of Hyesan have arrested at least three merchants for selling memory cards from abroad, an anonymously resident of the city has said as quoted on Thursday.
In a country closed off from the global internet and where foreign media is forbidden, people in North Korea get glimpses of the outside world from easily concealable memory cards and USB thumb drives smuggled in from China and passed around from person to person.
Often, media like South Korean movies, music, and TV shows are copied and widely distributed in this manner.
Because Hyesan lies on the border with China, smuggling and media-related offenses that occur there often lead to large investigations intended to find other people involved in either informal or sophisticated distribution networks.
Patung Kim Jong Il di Korea Utara
- Al Jazeera
The three merchants were arrested in the middle of June, “They were caught in the act by a state security agent disguised as a civilian,” she said. “USB (flash drives) or memory cards cannot pass through customs [legitimately] because they are controlled items that cannot be sold in the marketplace. So (the ones) owned by individuals were smuggled in.”
North Korea in recent years has declared war on what it says is an invasion of foreign culture, including by passing laws detailing harsh punishments for watching, storing, and distributing “anti-socialist” content.
Violators of the law have been slapped with lengthy prison sentences and even the death penalty over it.
As a preventative measure, computers sold in North Korea do not have USB access ports, but North Koreans are able to smuggle laptops from China specifically so they can use thumb drives and memory cards.
Smuggling became much harder during the COVID-19 pandemic because Beijing and Pyongyang closed the Sino-Korean border, with North Korea even ordering security forces to shoot and kill any unauthorized person found within one kilometer.
