Hoping to Lure High-Level Defectors, South Korea Increases Rewards<br />By CHOE SANG-HUNMARCH 5, 2017<br />SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea said on Sunday that it would quadruple the cash reward it provides for North Korean defectors arriving<br />with sensitive information to 1 billion won, or $860,000, in an effort to encourage more elite members from the North to flee.<br />But it has also offered extra cash rewards for those who defected with important information on the North Korean military or the<br />inner workings of the secretive North Korean government, as well as for those who fled with military planes or other weapons.<br />As it became more risky to cross the border into China, North Korean border guards demanded bigger bribes<br />in return for letting people slip through, according to human rights activists who help defectors.<br />On Sunday, the Unification Ministry, a South Korean government agency in charge of North Korea policies, said<br />that it plans to increase the cash bonus for a defector with such information to $860,000 from $217,000.<br />Today, almost all defectors from the totalitarian North flee through its border with China, though<br />Mr. Kim has taken steps to tighten that border in the five years since he took power.<br />The number of North Korean defectors arriving in the South, which peaked with 2,914 in 2009, has since dropped to 1,418 last year.<br />They come at a time when South Korean officials say<br />that more elite members from North Korea, deeply disappointed with their leader Kim Jong-un and fearful of his "reign of terror," are trying to defect to the South.
