Inside North Korea’s Top Spy Agency, the Notorious Ministry of State Security

Listen to undercover agent Ulrich Larsen’s True Spies Podcast: The Mole.

When US soldier Travis King bolted across the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea in July 2023, he crossed one of the last remaining Cold War frontiers.

King, a 23-year-old US Army Private 2nd Class, may have also crossed into the hands of North Korea’s Ministry of State Security, the much-feared spy agency tasked with tracking down, identifying, and catching intruders deemed ‘hostile agents’. The MSS is one of Pyongyang’s four primary intelligence and security agencies (see breakdown below).

Technically, North and South Korea are still at war and the US, which fought alongside South Korea during the Korean War (1950-1953), has no formal diplomatic relations with Pyongyang. What little is known about the inner workings of North Korea and its spy agencies is largely intelligence gathered from undercover operatives and defectors.
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North Korea’s Ministry of State Security

North Korea’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) is the counterintelligence service, an autonomous agency that reports directly to leader Kim Jong Un. According to North Korean defector and former MSS officer Dr. Kim Hyun-woo, MSS’s role includes catching hostile agents and tracking down hostile activities which can be as mundane as watching a South Korean drama on television - an act that could result in several years in prison.

The MSS also runs prison camps, investigates domestic espionage, and repatriates defectors. It has been called the secret police, the National Security Agency, and many other names throughout the years and is divided into two sections. Section One (the first directorate) tracks foreigners stationed in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, who may work for the UN mission, foreign embassies, or in foreign trade liaison offices. Section Two (the second directorate) focuses on North Korea’s domestic population to ensure no subversive activities threaten the Kim family dynasty.

Speaking through a translator to US broadcaster NPR, Dr. Kim Hyun-woo said the MSS’s extensive network of agents also monitor the country's high-ranking military officials and politicians. The agency is staffed with North Korean elites with unimpeachable social and familial backgrounds. Officers must complete mandatory military service and graduate from North Korea’s intelligence university (previously known as Pyongyang Technical College). 

Dr. Kim defected with his family while working in China in 2014 after 17 years with the MSS and is now employed by a Seoul think tank affiliated with a South Korean spy agency, the National Intelligence Service. He compared North Korea’s MSS to a combination of the FBI, which has legal authority, and Britain’s MI5, which protects the UK against espionage, terrorism, and sabotage threats. 

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North Korea: crime and punishment

North Koreans who disobey leader Kim Jong Un’s ideology - or political, organizational, economic, or social control - can be convicted of political or general crimes. 

Political criminals are subject to confinement in special dictatorship zones (political prison camps). General criminal offenders may either be imprisoned or confined to forced labor training camps.

“North Korea’s primary strategic goal is perpetual Kim family rule via the simultaneous development of its economy and nuclear weapons program - a two-pronged policy known as byungjin,” according to the US Department of Defense. 
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Ulrich Larsen, the North Korean mole

Ulrich Larsen, a former Danish chef, is among the rare breed of foreign spies who made it out of North Korea alive.

Larsen was living on benefits more than a decade ago, unable to work because of health problems. After watching a documentary on North Korea - and feeling he had little else to lose - Larsen became fixated on the idea of becoming a private spy and working in the country as an undercover mole. He joined the Korean Friendship Association (KFA) in 2009 and things snowballed from there. Larsen quickly gained the trust of KFA leader Alejandro Cao de Benós and, before he knew it, Larsen was en route to North Korea - one of the most dangerous countries on Earth.

Larsen dreamed up a cover story and told people he was working as a chef to a billionaire interested in investing in Kim Jong Un’s vision. With no formal military or espionage training, Ulrich Larsen then went looking for evidence of illegal international trade by North Korean criminals and found much more than he anticipated.

“Suddenly, we were sitting in this room with the representative of the government, the president of the arms factory, and people from the pharmaceutical industry,” Larsen told the True Spies podcast. “They just took out papers showing all their weapons and missiles. And Mr. James and I were looking at each other and were like: “What the f*** is going on? After they have shown us these things they will kill us!”

In 2020, Larsen blew his own cover but the experience stayed with him. Today he is still vigilant, placing empty soda cans on door handles in hotels, so he is warned if anybody tries to enter. To hear Ulrich Larsen’s full story, listen to the True Spies podcast: The Mole.

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To book Ulrich Larsen as a speaker or consultant, he can be contacted via SPYEX.