A small but fierce army of young and handsome North Korean girls was charged with enchanting and seducing politicians and entrepreneurs from foreign countries. The fruit of conjunctions became the object of blackmail.
The objectives pursued by the North Korean regime differed according to the status of the victim: entrepreneurs were forced to invest in the Asian state; journalists forced to write positive stories about it and foreign politicians were required to sponsor North Korea at international summits.
The winning weapon of the corrupter was to reveal herself as an exponent of the regime and not a common citizen, therefore, not being able to hide her son, this would have been subjected to a life of isolation and privation; a formidable lever to force the new father to grant his collaboration.
But the Honeytrap operation had a second purpose: the illegitimate children were instructed to become secret agents. In their favor, just that physical structure that at home made them unlike other citizens, but in the parent's nation they would have been perfectly hidden among the indigenous population.
Some men chose to stay in North Korea, marry the woman and form a normal family, but their children also received training that would make them spies to be sent to their father's country of origin. The victims were mainly prominent people visiting the Asian nation, and the girls approached them as interpreters or assistants, assigned by the host government as a courtesy.
Their ability to enchant the visitor was such that, in many, they refused the evidence of having been duped and supported the authenticity of the emotional bond.
The priority target was Japan, both for physical similarity and for economic interests; in fact, in the 80 years, North Korea kidnapped some Japanese citizens to translate them to Pyongyang, where it forced them to train these young people to the Japanese language and culture.
The process generated dormant agents or spies virtually impossible to detect.
Giovanni Caprara
