(soft music)
Downloaded from YTS.MX
- North Korea is like "Game of Thrones"
but without the dragons.
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
It's an aristocratic society, and it's capitalist.
And everything is geared to make sure
that there's as much cash for Kim as is possible.
(Koh speaking Korean)
Bureau 39 is involved in everything that makes money
for North Korea: selling arms, smuggling of drugs,
counterfeiting of U.S. bills.
This is about hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
(Park speaking Korean)
(suspenseful music)
(soft music)
- [Narrator] North Korea, the pariah state.
A dictatorship shrouded in mystery.
Every day, the official newspapers
praise the heroic deeds of the Dear Leader.
Time seems to stand still here.
North Korea has the fourth largest army in the world.
For three generations,
the Kim family has ruled the country with an iron fist.
But how does the regime manage to survive
despite severe UN sanctions?
And how come Kim Jong-un has enough money to threaten
the world with the most powerful weapon of all time:
the nuclear bomb.
(rocket engines roaring)
(soft music)
Far from North Korea,
a history professor is working
on answers to these questions.
Remco Breuker from the University of Leiden
in the Netherlands has been studying
the enigmatic country and its rulers for years.
He says our image of North Korea is wrong.
- North Korea isn't what it tells us it is.
Just look how the country functions at the highest level.
What is the main goal of the government,
of the regime, I should say?
It's to make money. It's to make cash for Kim.
What intrigues me personally
is how North Korea manages to make money.
One of the questions we were stuck with
is where does the money go?
How much money does North Korea make?
- [Narrator] For North Korea's leadership,
questions like these are dangerous.
- The North Korean regime sent a letter of indictment
under my name to the Dutch government,
charging me with three capital crimes.
The worst of the three was the accusation that our research,
my research because it was in my name,
damaged the supreme dignity of the supreme leader.
This sounds like it's a funny crime, right?
Damaging the supreme dignity of somebody.
In North Korea it carries the death penalty.
- [Narrator] A serious threat.
Remco Breuker's investigations threaten
to disrupt North Korea's cash flow.
The country is internationally isolated
because of its nuclear program.
Without legal sources of income,
the regime has taken to raising money illegally.
New York, the seat of the United Nations.
Since 2006, the UN has imposed nine rounds
of sanctions against North Korea.
These measures are monitored
by an international panel of experts.
The panel consists of eight members,
including ex-intelligence, military and financial experts.
For their own safety, they work in secret.
Only the coordinator, Hugh Griffiths,
is willing to speak on camera.
- The sanctions have a tremendous impact
on one level on North Korea.
It means that their economy can't flourish
in the way it would if they were able
to sell their largest
foreign currency-earning commodities legitimately.
So, they can't ship coal legitimately,
they can't ship iron ore legitimately,
they can't ship zinc legitimately.
Foreign currency is very important to any country,
no matter how autarkic its economy.
You need foreign currency to buy the goods
that are essential for your population
or for your elite group.
So foreign currency is pretty essential
to North Korea's survival.
The question is, what's more important
to the North Korean leadership:
developing nuclear and ballistic missile program
or seeing their economy flourish?
(soft music)
- [Narrator] The regime decided to go for the bomb.
In 2005, it officially announced that it had nuclear weapons
as a protection against attacks
from the outside and to strengthen its power on the inside.
Pyongyang, the city of the chosen.
Brand new apartment blocks line spotlessly clean avenues.
Here is where Pyongyang's upper class resides.
Only those who are considered loyal to the regime live here.
Those who want to enter the capital
from the outside need a permit.
Seong Kyun-chul
from Pyongyang's Economic Research Institute.
He is authorized to talk to journalists,
for example, about the sanctions.
(Seong speaking Korean)
- The sanctions that have been put
on North Korea are extremely strict.
I mean, there's probably not been a country
that has been sanctioned more diversely, more strictly.
At the same time, they're no longer working.
There is a huge problem with our North Korea policy
and using sanctions to try
and have the regime modify its behavior,
because we're not sanctioning the one entity
that earns most of this money,
that keeps it afloat financially, that keeps it alive.
- [Narrator] Many high-ranking defectors from North Korea
talk about a secret government department
that's said to administer the regime's secret funds.
Allegedly, Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il
set it up in the late 1970s
and equipped it with wide ranging powers.
Its tasks: securing an independent power base for the Kims,
and raising money for the nuclear bomb
and the leaders' personal luxury.
Its name: Bureau 39.
Only 200 kilometers to the southeast: Seoul.
South Korea's hypermodern capital.
One of the 10 most expensive cities in the world.
Around 25 million people live in the metropolitan area,
about half the population of South Korea.
Among them, most of the 30,000 people
who managed to flee from North Korea.
Koh Young-hwan was a North Korean diplomat.
He escaped in 1991.
Later, he was deputy director
of South Korea's Institute for National Security Strategy.
Few people know more
about the Kim regime's workings than he does.
(Koh speaking Korean)
- Talk to any prominent North Korean exile
and they'll all tell you that Bureau 39
is absolutely crucial in earning revenues
for the North Korean regime.
It's absolutely vital.
Take it away, everything collapses.
(soft music)
- [Narrator] Here in New York, the United Nations impose
and monitor the sanctions against North Korea.
An entity as important as Bureau 39
should be heading the list of banned organizations.
- 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
and the shell companies that traditionally operate overseas
in third countries to generate foreign currency.
And then that money is sent back to North Korea.
- Bureau 39 outside of North Korea is not called Bureau 39.
Nobody identifies as somebody who works for Bureau 39.
So, it's very difficult to slap sanctions on people
you don't really know are active.
- [Narrator] Kinshasa, the capital
of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Since the 1980s,
North Korea has been procuring foreign currency here,
in the heart of Africa.
Koh Young-hwan witnessed
a particularly spectacular case at the time.
(Koh speaking Korean)
Bureau 39 never acts openly.
But its fundraising activities span the globe.
(soft music)
Angkor Wat in Cambodia, a World Heritage site.
Over 2.5 million people visit
the old Khmer temples every year.
Selfies for the tourists, foreign exchange for Cambodia.
Angkor Wat's operating company
earned more than $100 million in 2018.
Tourism is by far the largest industry here.
A lucrative business, also for North Korea.
Right next to the entrance to the temples:
a museum that opened in 2015.
At its heart is a 3D painting that depicts the history
of the Khmer Empire in monumental images.
Throngs of tourists are guided through here every day.
- So for the painter, they're from North Korea.
We had 63 painter.
They took one year and four months to paint it.
- [Reporter] And who constructed it?
Was it Cambodian or North Korean as well?
- The North Korean as well.
The North Korean construct the museum.
- [Narrator] Circumventing UN sanctions,
North Korea not only built the complex but also financed it.
In return, the North Koreans collect all the revenues
for the first ten years.
After that, they'll share the profits.
The North Korean CEO doesn't want to appear
in front of the camera.
But he says the museum makes
about $7 million a year in entrance fees alone.
Soon, this figure is supposed to double.
Cambodia and North Korea
have maintained close relations for decades.
Kim Il-sung and Cambodia's King Norodom Sihanouk
were good friends.
A solid basis for today's business ties
that contravene UN sanctions.
In the evening, when the museum closes,
the North Koreans throw
another set of doors open for the hungry tourists.
They don't want cameras in the restaurant,
so we film in secret.
- [Waitress] Reservation?
- [Reporter] Yeah, we had a reservation yesterday.
What name did you have?
(chatter)
- [Narrator] The tables are almost always fully booked.
- [Reporter] Can we also sit near the stage?
- [Waitress] Only reservation.
- [Reporter] Oh, okay then we sit here.
(chatter)
- [Narrator] The menu boasts North Korean specialties
such as cold noodles and sea cucumber.
The prices are surprisingly high by Cambodian standards.
A main course costs up to $50.
In particular, tourists from China
and South Korea visit the restaurant.
The young women who serve here
are mostly art students from Pyongyang.
They live and sleep above the restaurant
and are often not allowed to leave the premises for years.
Every evening at the same time,
they change their costumes and get ready for the big show.
(singing in Korean)
(upbeat music)
(people cheering)
There are 130 such North Korean restaurants worldwide,
three of them in Cambodia.
They're said to make several million dollars a year,
but the waitresses don't get paid for their work.
The dollars flow directly into the regime's secret coffers.
(chatter)
(soft music)
No other country exploits its population
as systematically as North Korea.
North Korean workers are deployed worldwide.
Even in the European Union: in Poland.
Here, we encounter North Korean work brigades
on a building site.
They've been promised good wages
and decent working conditions,
only to be treated like slaves.
In the evening, after a 12-hour shift,
the workers are driven to their barracks.
They're monitored around the clock
by North Korean state security.
Still, one of them decides to talk.
(reporter speaking Korean)
(worker speaking Korean)
(reporter speaking Korean)
(worker speaking Korean)
(reporter speaking Korean)
(worker speaking Korean)
Modern slavery: North Korea sends
well-trained workers to Poland to toil in shipyards
and on construction sites.
The workers' families are held hostage in North Korea.
If the worker flees,
the family at home is often severely punished.
The workers only earn about 90 euros per month,
the rest goes to the regime.
Cash for Kim.
Largely unnoticed by the international community,
North Korea has sent laborers all over the world,
up to 150,000 in all.
About 40,000 of them are in Russia
and up to 100,000 in China.
North Koreans also work in Kuwait, Malaysia,
Cambodia, Mongolia, Oman, Qatar,
the United Arab Emirates and in African countries.
Under UN sanctions,
these workers need to go back to North Korea.
But the practice still continues.
Experts estimate that the regime
makes up to $1 billion a year this way.
(Koh speaking Korean)
Defectors say that Bureau 39
is directly controlled by Kim Jong-un.
It manages the leadership's secret accounts,
the so-called palace economy.
But where in Pyongyang is Bureau 39 located?
And how many millions flow into its coffers?
(bell ringing) (soft music)
When we ask the North Korean official,
he and his translator pretend not to know.
(translator speaking Korean)
(Seong speaking Korean)
Bureau 39 is one of the best-kept secrets of the Kim regime.
Only North Koreans who've escaped can talk about it openly.
(soft music)
Seoul.
At a secret location,
we meet a man who used to work for Bureau 39.
He was based in China.
His task: smuggling foreign currency.
Then he escaped.
His position was so important that today,
the North Korean regime threatens to kill him.
This is why he had plastic surgery to alter his face.
Even so, he only wants to be filmed from behind.
(Lee speaking Korean)
To understand Bureau 39
and the capitalist structures of North Korea,
it's important to understand its history.
In 1991 the Soviet Union breaks up.
North Korea loses one
of its most important trading partners.
While many former socialist states
now rely on market economics,
the Kims continue to isolate themselves.
When Kim Jong-il takes over
from his late father in 1994, a famine breaks out.
- During the great famine in the mid-90s,
many North Koreans starved to death.
The public distribution system collapsed.
Witnesses described seeing mountains
of dead bodies in the streets.
Anywhere between one to three million North Koreans died.
So, what happened is that North Koreans now knew
that if they wanted to survive,
they could no longer trust or rely on the state.
- [Narrator] From then on, the rural population
in particular had to be self-sufficient.
Black markets started to emerge all over North Korea.
They're called Jangmadang.
All sorts of currencies are accepted,
especially American dollars and Chinese yuan.
Today, there are countless
of these markets throughout the country.
400 of them are even officially licensed
and provide tax income for the regime.
Mainly food and goods from China are bartered and sold here.
(Lee speaking Korean)
- So, the regime tried to control the markets
but it knows it can't,
because if it shuts down the markets
without having in place another public distribution system,
people die of hunger.
And North Koreans are not going to let that happen again.
They know what happened last time.
And that's how North Korea really changed
from a socialist country with an economy in ruins
to a capitalist country with a hybrid economy
that looks socialist but really is capitalist.
- [Narrator] The biggest profiteers
from these black markets are Pyongyang officials.
Because of their loyalty,
but mainly out of financial self-interest,
the regime allows them to trade.
Over the years, they've become rich.
They sell luxury goods, smuggle raw materials
and invest in real estate.
They're called Donju, Money Lords.
They enjoy the luxury and the freedom
that the regime grants them.
But their loyalty comes at a price.
Many Donju hold senior government positions,
including at Bureau 39.
(soft music)
Like this man who's been hiding in Seoul since he escaped.
Born in the 90s,
he experienced how North Korea
developed increasingly capitalist structures.
Before his escape, he was responsible for exports,
Bureau 39's most lucrative business.
Fearing the regime's revenge,
he too doesn't want to be recognized.
(Park speaking Korean)
In that respect at least,
North Korea's go-getters are no different
from their counterparts in the West.
(Lee speaking Korean)
(Park speaking Korean)
(reporter speaking Korean)
(Park speaking Korean) (reporter speaking Korean)
(soft music)
Hamburg, Germany.
Until a few years ago,
the North Korean state insurance company KNIC
had a branch in an innocuous-looking apartment block here.
Six North Korean officials made deals
with major European insurance companies.
(Koh speaking Korean)
One case among many.
In 2015, the European Union
put the North Korean insurance company
on their sanctions list.
The accusation: co-financing of the nuclear weapons
program through Bureau 39.
Experts estimate that with crashed helicopters
and similar tricks,
the Kim regime earned several hundred million dollars.
(Koh speaking Korean)
But how does the Kim regime
manage to transfer the millions it makes to Pyongyang?
The answer is simple: through diplomatic channels.
(Lee speaking Korean)
North Korea uses its worldwide network
of embassies to ferry money back to Pyongyang.
North Korean officials enjoying diplomatic immunity
carry the money in cash in their flight baggage.
A simple but efficient way to ensure
the cash flow doesn't stop.
- The North Korean embassies have a diplomatic function,
but that's often mainly ceremonial.
But their true function is financial.
It's also illegal, mainly.
North Korean diplomats are basically cash carriers for Kim.
They're entrepreneurs, they're businessmen.
They may be drug lords, they may be weapons smugglers,
but they carry a diplomatic passport,
so you can't touch them.
- [Narrator] Berlin.
Right in the middle of the city
lies the North Korean embassy.
The North Koreans have been renting out
one of the buildings as a hostel for tourists.
They've been earning 38,000 euros per month in rent.
Using embassy grounds for such activities
is against diplomatic practices
and contravenes UN and EU sanctions.
But despite the efforts of German authorities,
operations have been continuing for years.
- Like any other country,
the main goal of the embassies is to serve the state.
And the North Korean state's priorities, in particular.
So, because sanctions are so comprehensive now,
much of the activities conducted
in these embassies may be prohibited.
Providing military supplies, training,
and much of that has been done
through North Korea's embassies,
particularly in Africa and the Middle East.
So out of all the countries in the Middle East,
currently the Syrian Arab Republic has the greatest levels
of prohibited cooperation
with North Korean military entities.
- [Narrator] Hafiz al-Assad,
the father of the current Syrian despot,
and Kim Il-sung were friends from the 1960s on.
Back then, the North Koreans helped the Syrians
during the war against Israel
and supplied them with weapons and ammunition.
An important source of income right up till today.
Using tactics similar to those of 18th century pirates,
Bureau 39 runs ships under false flags and fake names.
According to the UN, North Korea has thus managed
to send large numbers of weapons and grenades to Syria.
Between 2012 and 2017,
at least 40 shipments from North Korea
passed through the Suez Canal.
But in 2018, the UN managed to have one of them intercepted.
- So, we found something, cargo on its way to Syria.
These were acid-resistant tiles and valves,
which could be used in chemical weapons development.
But also, missile fuel is highly corrosive.
And such tiles could be used
for ballistic missile program as well.
The bill of lading clearly gave us an address in Syria,
an established front company
for Syria's Scientific Studies Research Center, the SSRC,
which is responsible for Syria's ballistic missile
and chemical weapons development program.
- [Narrator] The chemical weapons produced
in these laboratories have been used
by Syria's dictator Assad against his own people for years.
- [Reporter] And pictures of many others
who died in agony, foaming at the mouth.
- [Narrator] It's a little-known fact that the Syrian
chemical weapons program was created
with the help of North Korean technicians and scientists.
- Syria's Scientific Studies Research Center, the SSRC,
have facilities located close to Damascus,
Homs and elsewhere in Syria.
And some of these sites were subsequently bombed
by the United States.
- More than a hundred missiles were fired
in a joint action targeting suspected chemical weapon sites.
President Trump declares: mission accomplished,
saying missile strikes against Syria by the U.S.,
Britain and France were perfectly executed.
- The purpose of our actions tonight
is to establish a strong deterrent against the production,
spread and use of chemical weapons.
- Well, when the Americans bombed the chemical laboratories,
they bombed the North Koreans there.
Whether they knew they were bombing
the North Koreans, I don't know.
But they did, yes.
The North Korean presence in Syria
is really much underreported and underappreciated.
(suspenseful music)
Had Syria not been able to count on North Korea
to sell to it its weapons,
its guided missiles, its chemical laboratories,
perhaps Assad would not have emerged
as a victor from this struggle.
- [Narrator] One third of all buildings
in Syria have been destroyed.
A tragedy and a business opportunity.
The Syrian regime hopes for billions
from international donors
for the reconstruction of the country.
The necessary work brigades are to come from North Korea.
The two countries signed a contract
at a meeting in June, 2019.
Dirty deals between despots.
- The money that's earned by Office 39,
it goes straight into the coffers of the leadership.
It is used on the one hand to provide for luxury items.
It is used to pay for the Mercedes Benz cars
that somehow found their way
into North Korea despite the sanctions.
But it is also used, and this is probably more important,
to deliver the best hackers you can train.
As early as the mid-80s,
Kim Jong-il started training the most talented children
in terms of mathematical abilities
and programming abilities to become cyber hackers.
They're also good money earners.
Ransomware, like the WannaCry virus for example,
is considered to come from the North Koreans.
- [Reporter] It is the biggest cyberattack
the world has ever seen.
Hundreds of thousands of computers
around the world in about 150 countries rendered useless.
Now the US government is publicly placing the blame
for that cyber-assault, uniquely dubbed WannaCry,
squarely on Kim Jong-un's army of hackers.
British intelligence officials and Microsoft
had previously concluded that groups associated
with the North Korean regime
were responsible for the WannaCry hack.
- [Narrator] In Seoul, computer specialists
are hot on the heels of North Korean hackers.
Simon Choi works as a consultant
for South Korean intelligence agencies.
(Simon speaking Korean)
North Korea has limited access to the Internet,
only 1,000 IP addresses are available to the country.
North Korean computer specialists
use them to attack other countries.
Experts estimate that between 600
and 1,300 hackers work for Kim.
(Simon speaking Korean)
Experts estimate that up to two billion dollars
have been stolen by young,
highly trained North Korean hackers.
(soft music)
North Korea has developed an efficient education system
for its upper middle class.
Here at Pyongyang Middle School,
the children who will later be computer specialists,
scientists and engineers are trained
to shape the future of the country, at home or abroad.
- Hello, everybody, nice to meet you.
I am (indistinct). I am eight years old.
But I'm a student, I can speak English,
I can speak Chinese, I can speak Russian too.
I count on the abacus, it's real fun.
Thank you.
- [Narrator] The students also learn how to use computers.
They have access to a very limited
North Korean version of the internet.
Uncensored variety is strictly forbidden.
North Korea's rulers know
that once the doors to the digital world
have been thrown open, they can never be shut again.
But despite all precautions,
in 2007 North Korea faced
the first digital data leak in its history.
Because a lot of classified information
is now available digitally,
it can easily be copied and smuggled out of the country.
For example, the data of Pyongyang's municipal registry
with more than two million entries.
Professor Breuker obtained a copy
and is currently analyzing it using special software.
- We never had this kind of up-to-date information ever.
If you want to understand the system, the regime, the party,
if you want to understand Pyongyang,
if you want to understand North Korean economic activities
in and outside of the country,
this is really the Stone of Rosetta.
We can now actually go about analyzing
and mapping Pyongyang for the first time.
And we're no longer dependent on anecdotes,
on people who tell us where all the buildings are.
We can actually now see who's inside the buildings,
what companies there are, what departments there are,
and where you should locate them.
- [Narrator] The data proves the main building of Bureau 39
is close to the seat of power,
right in the middle of Pyongyang.
Just a stone's throw away
from the headquarters of the Workers Party.
It's divided into six main departments
and employs several thousand people in Pyongyang alone.
They have their own fleet of vehicles, kindergartens,
a golf course, an ostrich farm and even their own bank.
These six main departments are in turn responsible
for hundreds of individual companies throughout North Korea.
They control iron ore and diamond mines,
jewelry factories and textile companies.
They're mainly specialized in exporting goods abroad.
Other companies in the Bureau earn foreign exchange
through forced labor, arms smuggling and insurance fraud.
But one rule applies to all:
the name Bureau 39 is never mentioned outside North Korea,
so it remains invisible.
Impossible for UN sanctions monitors to detect.
(soft music)
(Lee speaking Korean)
(Park speaking Korean)
North Korea is changing.
An impoverished socialist state
has turned into a country
with a highly flexible shadow economy.
In many ways, North Korea is run like a commercial company.
All that matters is cash for Kim.
The workers here are no longer
slaving away for the revolution,
but for the wealth of their leader and his cronies.
The gap between rich and poor is widening.
While the population in Pyongyang
enjoys a constantly growing prosperity,
40% of the rural population still suffer from malnutrition.
In order to control its people,
the regime employs Cold War-era socialist tactics.
North Korea's shadow economy, on the other hand,
is 21st century capitalist.
- What the database shows beyond any doubt
is that Office 39 not only exists,
now we can prove what it does.
It owns companies. It operates these companies.
It exports clothes.
It exports tobacco.
It exports all kinds of things.
And that is actually quite an important development
in understanding how North Korea
manages to earn money abroad.
And we now know exactly through what kind of departments,
through what kind of companies Office 39 does this.
- [Narrator] The Kim Jong-suk silk spinning mill,
named after Kim Jong-un's grandmother.
A model factory.
1,600 workers are employed here, most of them women.
They sort, process and boil the cocoons
of the silkworms to obtain the precious yarn.
The silkworms come from a province south of Pyongyang.
About 200 tons of silk are produced here every year.
A luxury product, expensive and labor-intensive.
The factory's entire production
is intended for export abroad.
But the supervisors are unwilling
to disclose who the foreign customers are.
- I'm not sure anymore who suffers under those sanctions.
It's a hassle, I'm sure, for North Koreans.
But they do find ways around it.
One of the problems is that neither China nor Russia
is helping in enforcing the sanctions.
(Park speaking Korean)
(reporter speaking Korean)
(Park speaking Korean)
- [Narrator] Textiles are the second most important
North Korean export product after coal.
(translator speaking Korean)
(Seong speaking Korean)
(translator speaking Korean)
(Seong speaking Korean)
Dandong, China.
North Korea's gateway to the world
and a symbol of how futile the UN's efforts are
to dry up Kim's sources of cash.
The Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge across the Yalu River
has been connecting China and North Korea since 1943.
It's one of the few ways to enter or leave North Korea.
Every day, trucks queue in front of the customs checkpoint.
Smugglers, traders, and also the agents and entrepreneurs
of Bureau 39, they're all hoping for a quick deal here.
China is by far North Korea's
most important trading partner.
Financial experts estimate that 90% of North Korea's exports
go to its powerful neighbor in the North.
(soft music)
Thousands of North Koreans
are said to work in textile factories in the region.
Disguised as businessmen and equipped with hidden cameras,
we film in one of the factories.
Chinese textile companies hire North Koreans
because their wages are lower than those of Chinese workers.
These seamstresses work day and night,
and often sleep on the company premises.
They're likely to be locked up for years,
far away from their families.
Together with a team of labor lawyers,
trade experts and data specialists,
Remco Breuker tries to find out whether European brands
work with Chinese companies
that directly or indirectly employ North Koreans.
- Well, we found out different things.
And one of the things we were actually hoping to establish
was the use of North Korean workers in Chinese factories.
But what we found, really to our surprise,
is that, yes, we do have North Korean workers
working under slave-like conditions in China,
but more than that,
Chinese factories outsource
to North Korean factories in North Korea.
We've managed to prove the existence
of a significant amount of North Korean slave labor
in the supply chain
of some of the world's leading clothing companies.
Basically, in Europe and the U.S. we've come to an agreement
that we no longer wish to find slave labor
or child labor in our supply chains,
so there are all kinds of agreements in place.
But if you look closer at some of these producers,
you find that sometimes up to 90% of the production
does not take place in China.
It does not take place in the factories where the European
and the Americans auditors come
to check whether working conditions are decent.
Yes, they are in those factories,
but that's only where 10% of the products are made.
The other 90% comes from North Korea.
- [Narrator] Breuker's team investigated
one Chinese textile company more closely.
It's called Vent d'Est.
Their website states that the company
relies on low labor cost and abundant human resources.
Their list of customers reads
like a who's who of international fashion brands.
The website features a men's jacket.
Next to it it says: "Korean imported".
The buttons carry a label: Armani Jeans.
Using trade databases,
Breuker's team analyzed Vent d'Est's business relations
between 2013 and 2019.
The databases use customs data
showing which goods are sent back and forth
between companies in different countries.
- So, what happens is that China sends the material
to make certain types of clothes to North Korea.
One month later, they're shipped back in the same container,
and then you have finished clothes.
Those clothes are then shipped to, say,
the Netherlands or to Germany or to America.
And from there they're distributed into our stores.
- [Narrator] Between 2013 and December 2016,
Vent d'Est sent around $10 million worth of fabrics
and raw materials to North Korea.
During the same period,
Vent d'Est received finished garments
worth almost $25 million from North Korea.
Customs classify textiles by so-called HS codes.
A ladies' sweater, for example,
has a different HS Code than men's jeans.
We take a closer look at HS Code 6201.
It stands for men's anoraks and jackets,
like the Armani jacket on the website.
Between 2013 and December 2016,
Vent d'Est imported garments worth $12 million
with this code from North Korea.
The same code is also used for deliveries
from Vent d'Est to Europe and the US.
Among the customers: Armani.
Armani jackets that look exactly
like the one on Vent d'Est's website
can also be bought in Europe.
This one costs 219 euros.
It can't be proven beyond doubt whether garments
like this one are made in North Korea.
But can it be ruled out?
We ask the fashion brands.
Armani writes, "We confirm that Vent d'Est
is one of our suppliers and as such is regularly subject
to checks and inspections,
the result of these checks being that no finished products
are manufactured in North Korea.
Like all our suppliers,
it's also required to declare which subcontractors it uses
and where these are concerned
it's also the case that none are in North Korea."
We've also contacted Vent d'Est in writing.
The company offered no explanation as to why
and to what extent it trades with North Korea.
One thing can be said for certain.
Well-known fashion brands have their goods manufactured
by a Chinese company that cooperates with North Korea.
A country where workers have no rights.
Where human life counts for nothing.
Breuker's investigation shows
that this is not an isolated incident.
- For years and years,
we've heard testimonies from North Korean escapees
who were in concentration camps,
that they had been forced there to produce textiles
for the export market for famous Western brands.
And I think for the first time I've been able to corroborate
that through an external source, so not through a testimony.
In the same database, I found the department,
the bureaucratic department,
that is responsible for managing the production of textiles
for one of the concentration camps outside Pyongyang.
It means that we not only buy clothes
produced by forced laborers, maybe even slave labor,
we may even buy clothes in the Netherlands, in Germany,
all through Europe, in America,
that was made in concentration camps
by people who will never see the light of day again.
These are the kinds of camps
that you don't leave until you're dead.
That is just too horrific to put in words.
And we're complicit.
(soft music)
- [Narrator] Hundreds of thousands of men and women
secretly ensure the survival of the dictatorship.
Their futures are sacrificed
for the luxury of the regime and for our prosperity.
Kim Jong-un is not a crazy dictator,
but a coolly calculating businessman
who runs his country like a company.
His Bureau 39 does business
with everything and everyone,
including us.