North Korea's Man in Spain

to start with one individual. We're gonna call him Alejandro here in our introduction, and as you'll see later on in this story, this is an individual who keeps shortening his name. Well, he happens to live six thousand miles from Pyongyang. He lives in Spain, yet not exactly a local, and he's the only non Korean affiliated with the government. He began as a teenage fan boy of the socialist

state and over time developed ties to the regime. He says he's the primary contact for anyone in the West who wants to cold call North Korea, and Josh Dean cold called him for the magazine and got one of the strangest stories you can imagine North Korea's man in Spain. If you want to explore mining opportunities or get word on Kim Jong UN's health. You start with Alejandro Kao Dibenos.

He's only six thousand miles from Pyongyang. By Josh Dean, the message from Dubai in late twenty eighteen wasn't unusual. It's just part of the day for Alejandro Kao Dibanos to open his email and find some intrepid capitalist who wants to do a little business in North Korea. Recently, there was the one from a guy in Hawaii who wanted to open a McDonald's in Pyongyang. That's an easy No. Privately owned businesses are forbidden in the Democratic People's Republic

of Korea. No McDonald's, no Kentucky Fried Chicken, no Burger King, Kaodbinos says. Every so often, it's the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints in Spain asking if it's finally all right to send over a wave of white shirts carrying the Book of Mormon, even though he knows that's a non starter. Only those religions that existed in Korea before the d p r k's formation in nineteen forty eight are allowed to operate in

the country. Sometimes a lead seems real enough that kaw Dibinos can pass it up the ladder from his desk in Tarragona on Spain's sunny east coast, to the North Korean embassy in Madrid, or even to his contacts in Pyongyang. At first glance, the Dubai email was one of those. An Elena Sanchez was writing from an investment firm called Baron Stone Capital. Her boss, Adrian Hong, hoped to meet at the embassy to discuss investment opportunities, ideally in mining.

It might seem strange that a banker in Dubai would email a Spaniard to talk about investments in pyong Yang, but such as the idiosyncrasy of doing business with North Korea, I received this kind of request every day, Kao Dibonos tells me one afternoon in November. Requests of late have been more to address rumors that Supreme Leader Kim Jong un was in grave condition after heart surgery. We're walking around Tarragona during one of its infrequent rainy days. I'm

the only reachable person, he says. He means that literally. Kao di Bonos began as a teenage fanboy of North Korea's socialist state and over time developed ties to the regime. In two thousand two, after he'd spent more than a decade as a volunteer, cheerleader and propagandist, the Nations Supreme Leader Kim Jong Ill made him a special Delegate to

the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Official diplomacy is conducted through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and there are envoys at the United Nations, but business, science, culture, sports, basically anything outward facing goes through the committee. As the only non Korean affiliated with the government, Kau Dimanos says he's the primary contact for anyone in the West who

wants to cold call North Korea. The woman in Dubai said her boss was looking for investments in frontier markets. Kao Debanos can help with the request like this. We have many investment possibilities, he says, naming mindes, hotels, and I t or perhaps you don't have a specific play in this case, Caw Dibonos might arrange a meeting with the Ministry of Foreign Trade. Even an American like me can invest. If I'm willing to violate international sanctions, we

are happy to make business with you, he says. When Kaw Dibanos dug into barren Stone, he couldn't find any information on it. Sanchez was pushy too, She responded to his chilly replies with what felt like a bribe, an offer to hire him as a consultant if he could facilitate introductions at the embassy. She then announced that Hong would soon be in Madrid and hoped to arrange a

dinner with cow Debonos and North Korea's ambassador. kW Debonos says he notified the embassy of the inquiries and registered his skepticism. He didn't recommend a meeting. A few weeks later, on February twenty second, twenty nineteen, Hong showed up anyway. When an embassy worker came to the door, Hong and eight accomplices forced their way in for several hours. According to news reports, Hong and his team, who claimed to represent Free Josian, a North Korean dissident group, met a

to the staff. They isolated the only accredited North Korean diplomat in the basement, where they put a hood over his head and attempted to bully him into defecting. This effort failed, and at around nine thirty p m. The gang took laptops and flash drives, and fled in stolen diplomatic cars. Media accounts speculated that the break in was an attempt to disrupt the then upcoming nuclear talks between

President Trump and Kim Jong un in Vietnam. The group had supposedly targeted Madrid because North Korea's taught negotiator, Kim Yock Chol, was previously ambassador to Spain. North Korea had no official comment. Kao Dominos theorizes it was the c i A and tells me this was confirmed by friends in the Spanish intelligence Service. The CIA has denied involvement. Hong, sought by Spanish authorities on unspecified charges, is still at large.

Kao Dominos assumes that interest in Hong will fade because no one cares about the treatment of North Korean diplomats. He's also sure that the Sloppyists was a plan B. The real plan, he says, was that dinner Sanchez had tried to set up It's easier and cleaner to kidnap a diplomat leaving a restaurant, which means he might have been snatched to Kao de Banos laughs and pats his belly. He's a little plump. There's something vaguely ted cruzish about him.

I'm too big, he says. They have to feed me too much more important, He's a Spanish citizen and quasi famous. Taking him would be bad pr I'm too much of a public person. Alejandro ku Dibanos seems like a lot of name, but it's actually shortened. The whole banana. Alejandro cow Dibenos de Lessi Perez is on wieldy for daily use and off brand, signifying the aristocratic lineage of Spain's most famous socialist. He didn't grow up rich, but his

family was once powerful. He says. An ancestor conquered land on the French border and claimed it for the Spanish king, who rewarded with the title of Baron de Les. Caw Dibanos as the eldest mill heir has claimed to this title, as well as Marques de Rosalmante, Conde de Argelejo and Marques de Dies ma Ila Hinojosa. Today, the titles carry

no privileges. All the wealth is gone too. Because his paternal grandfather blew the fortune on poor investments in gambling, caw Dibanos could claim the honorifics but he'd have to ask the king's permission and pay a fee. His father was a chemist who married and raised his son in a happy, middle class home. After high school, caw Dibonos served three years as an MP in Spain's Air Force, but the whole time his heart was in North Korea. He has only honorary citizenship in the country, he says.

To become a North Korean citizen, caw Dibanos would have to renounce Spain, which would mean giving up a free life on the Spanish coast and moving to the world's most closed off country. This isn't a deal breaker for him. It's what I wanted since I'm thirteen, he says, over a plate of vegetable paea. Caw Dibonos is vegetarian in

Tarragona's Old Quarter. During one of three days worth of conversations in which he rhapsodizes about the famously brutal and authoritarian regime, that's when he read about North Korea's particular, in his view, pure form of socialism and fell in love. At sixteen, he flew to peyong Yang, having saved up for the flight by working at a gas station. I found a very clean society with very nice people, he recalls, and then I made up my mind I want to

help Korea. His first step was to found the Korean Friendship Association or kf AKAU. Dibinos persuaded high school Palace to join, not out of a shared affinity for socialism, but because he offered coca cola and karaoke at meetings. His father didn't approve. He wanted to push me out of home because he worried something will happen to the family because of my work, Cau Dibanos says, I had a tough time. It was a tough time to be an aspiring socialist period. This was the early nineteen nine

d's when Eastern Europe was falling. I was the only one going against direction, he says. In two thousand, Caw Dibanos created North Korea's first official website, Korea dpr dot com, despite knowing just rudimentary web design, he says. This was the country's only outwardly facing government side in English, he adds, until it started its own in twenty twelve, meaning that any Westerner who tried to contact North Korea online from two thousand to twenty twelve was riding to one Guy

in Spain. Hundreds of thousands of people visited The Primitive Side in its first year, occasionally overwhelming the limited band with Ku Dibanos could afford on his monthly budget of twenty euros. His work also attracted media attention, especially after US journalists learned who was behind the Jankee North Korean website that had just appeared in the world one day.

By the time Ko Dibanos returned to pyeong Yang in two thousand one with a group of twenty delegates from the k f A, he says his organization had thousands of members. It now has more than sixteen thousand across one hundred twenty countries. Still, he ached to be more than a friend. Kao Debinos wanted to be part of the project, he says, and offered to move to North Korea and join the army. Officials there told him the country had plenty of soldiers, what it didn't have was

a European cultural envoy. He was disappointed, but saw the logic. I will do what the country needs me to do, which is international relations, he says. I will sacrifice myself in the capitalist jungle and fight my way on February sixteenth, two thousand two, Kim Jong Il gave Kaw Dibinos his official appointment, the only non Korean working for the government, he says, with pride, first and only in history. Kao Dibinos is sometimes portrayed as a glorified tour guide, the

man you call to book a trip to Peyongyang. But my work is not tourism, he says. My work is to bring v I P s. He did not arrange visits by former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, or for that matter, by Dennis Rodman, the eccentric former basketball star. Those came through the U N Mission, and Kau Dibanos is fine with that. Rodman was a huge headache, he says.

But he did organize North Korea's first cryptocurrency conference. For a country banished from the global banking system, crypto has obvious appeal. The gathering was held in April nineteen at the glittering peong Yang PSI Tech Complex, which looks from above like an atom and was open to anyone who wanted to apply for an invitation, except for journalists and residents of South Korea, Japan, and Israel. Eight foreigners attended,

including Italian information security specialist Fabio Pietro Santi. He says the two day event was strange. The English talks were translated into Korean with a delay, forcing speakers to pause after every line, and participants were not allowed to interact with a single North Korean. Prominent American crypt specialists, Virgil

Griffith was another guest. Griffith flew home to Singapore with official state souvenirs, patriotic posters and knickknacks, and went straight to the U. S. Embassy to say I have been to North Korea and I give you some gifts. Caldbanos tells me, breaking into a grin, the decision was unwise, in his opinion. On November, three weeks after my visit to Spain, Griffith was arrested in Los Angeles and charged with violating U S sanctions for advising North Korea on

bitcoin mining. He faces twenty years in prison and has pleaded not guilty. Pietro Santi had a more fruitful trip. He'd been looking for cheap technical talent to build an open source medical software tool legal under UN sanctions, and Caudbanos helped him set up meetings Shortly thereafter, Pietro Santi paid seven thousand, one HU euros about seventy seven hundred dollars for four months of design work by four programmers.

I can't say that they are super high quality, but they were much better than many Indians I've worked with. He says. What impressed him most is that the programmers are able to work despite being cut off from the Internet, as nearly all North Korean citizens are. When they need technical information, the programmers told Pietro Santi they find it offline. He's now contemplating establishing a permanent research and design center there. Thirty thousand euros he figures would pay for five or

six full time developers for a year. Kau Dibanos says that other influential people, including Americans, have visited Pyongyang at his invitation, but they rarely talk about it. This frustrates him. He wishes they would scream from the rooftops of the fantastic visits that obliterate their pre existing biases about Asia's utopia. A former defense minister from a European nation that Kau Dibanos won't name recently contacted him to inquire about a trip.

He says This was an opportunity for promotion, to break the propaganda that you cannot travel to North Korea or you know that we will kill you, he says. But they don't want that because they know the problem it will create. Kaw Dibenos gets it. When he built the North Korean website, he had a good job doing I t but after word about his side hustle got out, he was reprimanded. He told his bosses it was just

a hobby. Whenever I go home, instead of playing football or playing on the computer, I'm working for Korea from seven or eight p m. Until two or three a m. He told them. It is my passion. The company wasn't having it. It urged Cawdbanos to quit, and he did in exchange for severance. He hasn't worked since two thousand five. I have to fight to survive. But that's the rule of the capitalist jungle. He says. His position carries no salary.

North Korea doesn't compensate him directly in any way. He says. He makes money by commission. When a company signs a deal to invest with North Korea, cow Dibinos takes what he calls a tiny fraction from the foreigner's side. This pays his bills usually, though he's been unable to arrange meetings during the coronavirus pandemic. I'm doing this for ideology and not for other interests, he says. If the kf A were a business, he charged members ten euros a

month and be rich. Instead, He's often broke. Sometimes it can be two months and I don't have a single cent, he says. In those cases, month three gets hairy and he more actively pursues deals, but every deal is fraught. One side often backs out because of the complexities of trying to make business in a country under international sanctions. It helps that he lives frugally in a six hundred fifty square foot house with a six hundred euro monthly

mortgage on a few acres of wooded hillside. There is a phrase that I like to use, he says. The rich person is not the one who has more money, but the one that needs less. I don't need fancy cars, and I don't spend money going to a disco. He sees a movie once every couple of months. He doesn't drink or smoke coodbinos must be entrepreneurial to navigate this peculiar path he broke his relationships between capitalists and a regime that dislikes them but not their money. As such,

he runs into bureaucratic roadblocks. Persistence is a prerequisite, immunity to frustration a necessity. The easiest deals to consummate, he says, often involved North Korea's natural resources. That's why the Adrian Hong request to talk about mining seemed reasonable at first. Also, there are investments to be made in textiles, pharmaceutical research, and heavy industry. Lately, Kudmino says he's fostered agreements with European companies to use cheap, skilled labor on technology projects.

We develop a lot of apps for Android and iOS and very cheap, he says, And we are very strong in animation. We export a lot for all kinds of modern cartoons. He cites an example, but obliquely. Let's say you're making a cartoon and you are outsourcing the work. So you go to Romania because you know it's very cheap. But the Romanian company knows of an even cheaper option. It's representative flies to Pyongyang and makes a deal for the same work at half the cost, and then gets

fifty of the fee without employing anyone. This has happened, He says. He will not name movies nor popular video games. North Korean labor is also behind websites and crypto. He says. The shadow hands of globally sanctioned socialist labor are all around us. Kao Dibanos is famous in North Korea. He has a Korean name Joe Saniel, meaning Korea is one country, and a nickname Chang gun im Chanza, which means dear soldier of the General, the general being Kim jong Il.

North Koreans politely approach him in restaurants and bring their glasses of wine to cheer with me. He says. He speaks only a little Korean, saying he doesn't have time to learn, and conducts business with the Cultural Committee in English. Spaniards, however, will stop me to talk and to take selfies. They're kind of invasive in the private area because they see you in a TV and they think they know you. I witnessed two women approach him at a cafe. They

say something in I think Korean, Yes, he confirms. After the women leave, they thanked me for my work. Sometimes fans show up at pyeong Yang cafe, a small space on the ground floor of an apartment building near Tarragona's Port. Kodbanos opened at the cafe, which served Korean foods, coffee and beer, and North Korean souvenirs as a marketing opportunity in and for a year it was a minor tourist attraction.

A kf A member owns the place, so there's no rent. Still, what little business it did wasn't enough to cover the monthly two thousand euros in tax and staff wages. Today it's just a place to hold KFE meetings and bring visitors like me. He plops on a couch and talks about how people have the wrong ideas about North Korea and the US. The former isn't bleak and miserable, the

latter isn't eden caw Dibanos is a loyal mouthpiece. He rejects all questions about extra judicial old killings or humanitarian atrocities as propaganda. The media is often reporting that we execute people, which is not true, he claims. He says he's been to Palo Alto and was worried for his safety after dark. He also stayed in New York City the Bronx once, and then there was Orlando. That was when caw Dibnos went to Florida to film a scene for a documentary The Propaganda Game, in which he plays

a major role. The Spanish director Alvaro Longoria wanted to get kaw Dimnos talking in the US about what he calls the famous film of the stupid Franco Man. He means James the actor, not Francisco the fascist, and the film and question is the interview which Franco made with Seth Rogan. The interview makes fun of North Korea and

shows Kim Jong un perishing in a helicopter crash. This indignity allegedly infuriated Kim so much that he ordered the hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment and the release of documents. Law Gloria liked the idea of having caw Dibonos mocked these allegations on garishly American soil next to the giant metal globe at Universal Studios, Florida. Why there and not outside, say Sony headquarters is unclear. Longoria didn't return requests for comment.

They shot at guerrilla style, just two men and a small camera among the tourists. I was explaining that it is known that the DPRK doesn't care about that stupid movie. Caw Dibonos recalls he was explaining it loudly enough that nervous tourists called security and the two Spaniards were ejected from the park. At least I managed to see alligators,

he says, that's the good part of it. Public rants have harmed cow Dibonos before a few years back, he was standing along the Korean demilitarized Zone with a Spanish journalist who asked him on camera how he felt about the presence of US soldiers. Caw Dibinos replied that he felt very angry about the US occupation and that if necessary,

I will take the arms and push them out. The footage set off a backlash in Spain that led to a raid on his home, the confiscation of two handguns that fired only rubber bullets, and the loss of his passport. He pleaded guilty to not having the required license for the guns. The case is under appeal and he's still unable to travel. Consensus in the U s has been that North Korea was behind this onny hack, but that's not been proven. Kaw Dibinos is here to tell us

all that the assertion is ridiculous. The country does have excellent hackers, targeting a movie studio would be a waste of their abilities. It's been three years since kaw Dibinos has visited pyong Yang. He says he misses the place. He still wishes he could live there, where the only thing his life might lack is variety. He'd miss horror movies. We don't have good horror movies in North Korea because you need special effects and a full industry behind that,

he says. But will I sacrifice a horror movie once every two months for living in a place where I can leave my wallet and nobody's going to steal for me, where I will have a free mortgage, Because now I'm living on the edge. If I don't have money at the end of this month, the bank kicks me out, I'm homeless. So what do you want to see a horror movie or have a house guaranteed for life? Caw Dibanos is an idealist. Hypocrisy irritates him. That's why I

work for North Korea, he says. I know the president, vice president and most of our ministers and leaders. I know how they live, I know how they behave. They are the ones who set the standard of honesty and being humble. If I found that any of them will accept a bribe or saying one thing and doing the other, I will never work for our government. I told our president. I will always serve the dpr K as long as

we keep our ideology and our standard. The day that DPRK will change like China or when they accept bribes, I will say bye bye. North Korea's mission at the u N and the country's embassy in Beijing didn't respond to request for comment on caw Dbanos's relationship to the government. South Korea's Unification minister, which is responsible for inter Korean affairs, declined to comment. China in particular offends him as a communist nation that now has a quasi free market riddled

with corruption. China is a cautionary tale of what could happen if North Korea opened its borders. If you ask kaw Dimonos, China is a far worse place than the US. At least America is honest about what it is. He's not finished. This is important. I will write a letter, he says, and renounce my position immediately, in the very moment that we allow private housing, or private land, or privatized education or healthcare. Recent months have only reinforced kaw

Dibanos's devotion. I tried calling him for comment about the pandemic and Kim Jong UN's health. He was slow to reply, then apologized when he did, saying that he was completely busy with so many interviews. He offered to reply to questions by email. While much of the Western world, including Spain, has been ravaged by COVID nineteen North Korea, he wrote is coronavirus free? On January fifteenth. He says he was asked by Pyongyang to help secure medical equipment for the

prevention of the virus. On January, North Korea closed its borders and imposed a thirty day quarantine on anyone entering the country. Kao Dibinos says the government mass produced masks and disinfectants, mobilized the army to develop disinfection duties, and tightly controlled the borders. Reached out to friendly nations and non governmental organizations for test kits and personal protective equipment,

and put twenty people into quarantine. There has not been a single death or a case of a patient with COVID nineteen. He says, although that assertion was confirmed by the World Health Organizations representative in Pyongyang, it seems impossible that this is true. North Korea borders China, its largest trading partner. Contrast that to what he's seen at home in a society that prioritizes freedom of movement and the

health of its businesses and isn't easily locked down. An absolute disaster, he says, as of late April, Spain was still averaging more than three hundred deaths a day, lacked adequate ppe, and was experiencing a shortage of some basic foods. Kodbinose says when he visited a public hospital in mid February, he was the only one wearing an advanced protective mask.

The fact that the politicians, doctors, and generals of the army and police in charge of overseeing the measures got the virus demonstrates how incapable they are to keep the population safe, he says. Regarding Kim's health, he wrote, there is no official comment. However, I can say that those rumors are false. He pointed out that the source of the claim, which cited an anonymous person, was Daily in

k which I'd heard him complain about before. As evidence that it wasn't true, he pointed me to a photo he'd chaired with his sixty thousand Twitter followers. It was of Kim smiling and looking as healthy as Kim ever looks, next to fighter planes, allegedly taken the day before this health crisis. It is also interesting to see our Marshal Kim Jong un watching the air Worse drill in perfect health, just the day before he was supposed to have the

heart operation. Kao Dibanos wrote during my visit, I had forgotten to ask if he and Kim had met. I had the chance to shake his hand and be close to him in different state events, he said, adding that a few letters had been exchanged through intermediaries. But unfortunately I do not have a close friendship like President Trump says he has with lieging Sharon Cho and Kanga Kong