"Up to 100,000 North Korean Workers Dispatched Abroad, Even Producing Military Drones in Russian Factories"

North Korea has been found to be dispatching workers to a drone factory in Russia to produce military drones for the country.

The Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT), comprising 11 countries including South Korea, the United States, and Japan, released a report today (September 16) titled "DPRK Sanctions Evasion and Violations of UN Security Council Resolutions: Overseas Labor."

The MSMT was launched to fill the gap in monitoring sanctions against North Korea following the dissolution of the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee on North Korea Panel of Experts in 2024, and this marks its third report.

According to the report, North Korean workers have been deployed to a drone factory located in Russia's Alabuga Special Economic Zone to manufacture military drones for Russia.

In addition, North Korean workers were found to have been dispatched to key Russian facilities, including arms manufacturing plants, steel processing facilities, and shipbuilding complexes.

This indicates that North Korean laborers are being deployed not only in simple construction, processing, and agriculture, but also directly at production sites for Russian military equipment.

Currently, an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 North Korean workers are residing in Russia.

The number of North Korean workers in Russia surged following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022 and is expected to continue increasing as bilateral cooperation deepens.

In particular, the demand for North Korean construction workers is growing as the war has created labor shortages.

Recently, cases were also confirmed where North Korean workers were deployed to post-war reconstruction sites in the Russia-Ukraine border region, residential construction sites near the Svobodny Cosmodrome, and construction and logging sites across the Russian Far East.

Most North Korean workers reportedly enter Russia using student visas.

Last year, more than 98% of the visas issued by Russia to North Koreans were student visas, and these workers were dispatched to construction, agriculture, livestock, and logging sites under the guise of practical training.

Russia amended its domestic laws to permit income-generating activities even on student visas, with a single North Korean worker in Russia estimated to generate an average annual income of around $7,500.

According to the MSMT, the monthly wages received by North Korean workers in Russia were analyzed to be up to five times higher than those received in China, depending on the industry.

The country hosting the largest number of North Korean workers is China, where an estimated 20,000 to 70,000 are residing.

Between 2023 and 2025, an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 returned to North Korea, but approximately 10,000 new workers are believed to have been sent to China between January of last year and January of this year.

North Korean workers are primarily engaged in labor-intensive industries such as simple processing or information technology (IT), mostly in areas bordering North Korea such as Liaoning and Jilin provinces.

North Korea continues to send workers to China mainly in the garment and seafood sectors, and investigations found that it has also pursued plans to send workers to electronics assembly plants.

The report stated that entries of North Korean workers through Dandong customs have been frequently observed since May of last year, and instances were noted where approximately 4,600 workers were dispatched to an industrial complex in Longjing, Jilin Province, and about 7,800 to Hunchun during the same year.

Beyond China and Russia, North Korean workers were found to be employed in healthcare, construction, IT, and manufacturing across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia.

Including these workers, an estimated 35,600 to 101,280 North Korean laborers worldwide were residing in at least 17 countries, generating between $450 million and $800 million (approximately 600 billion to 1.07 trillion won) in revenue last year.

The MSMT stated that North Korean authorities confiscate 80% to 90% of the wages earned by overseas workers, and in some cases, the confiscated amounts exceed actual earnings, leaving workers in debt to the regime.

A significant portion of the revenue generated this way was found to have been used for procuring military supplies by North Korean trading companies in China and Russia, while some was remitted directly to North Korea.

In this process, UN-sanctioned financial institutions such as the Foreign Trade Bank and Korea Kwangson Banking Corporation were utilized, and instances of physical cash transport via North Korean diplomatic vehicles, diplomatic pouches, and overseas business travelers were also confirmed.

In a joint statement, the participating countries of the MSMT pointed out that the revenue earned by North Korean overseas workers has funded North Korea's illicit nuclear and ballistic missile programs, urging the UN Security Council to re-establish a panel of experts with the same mandate and structure as before.
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.