Inside Kim Jong-un's push to bring Western tourists back to North Korea: What Brits find as they holiday in pariah country
Foreign tourists have stepped foot inside North Korea for the for the first time in five years and are left shocked by their experiences in the pariah country.
A small group of Western visitors made history as they returned to the hermit kingdom last month after the nation sealed its borders at the onset of the Covid19 pandemic in early 2020.
However, instead of the orchestrated tours of Pyongyang, these international travellers are now exploring the lesser-known eastern port city of Rason, designated as a 'special economic zone' over three decades ago to experiment with capitalist practices.
A group of 13 embarked on the five trip to the mysterious eastern port from February 20 to February 24 and were left stunned at experience where they were plied with fake designer gear and watched children dancing in front of videos of missile launches.
Among the initial group of visitors was Joe Smith, a British national familiar with North Korea from previous trips. He told the Telegraph that Rason appeared 'desolate, poorer, more spread out with a lack of restaurants' compared to the capital.
Tourists were first taken to an international goods market where local entrepreneurs sold predominantly Chinese-made items, including counterfeit luxury goods such as fake Gucci belts and Louis Vuitton handbags.
Smith recalled the market's lively atmosphere seemed genuine, with locals reportedly surprised to see Western visitors.
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted Rason, with Chinese businesses that supplied goods and software disappearing overnight. Locals acknowledged these challenges but eerily expressed gratitude for state-provided rations during lockdowns.
A group of 13 Western tourists embarked on a trip to North Korea for the first time since the hermit kingdom after the nation sealed its borders at the onset of the Covid19 pandemic in early 2020
Visitors were shown a performance at the Children's Palace which saw children singing and dancing in front of a exploding missile display
The guests were taken around schools in Rason, a lesser-known eastern port city, designated as a 'special economic zone' over three decades ago to experiment with capitalist practices
People walk before a village on the outskirts of North Korea's northeastern city of Rason, near the borders of both China and Russia, November 21, 2017
For some tourists, like Filipino entrepreneur Riza Rasco, the trip marked the culmination of a quest to visit every country globally.
She highlighted visits to facilities such as a children's palace, where students engage in extracurricular activities like music and taekwondo, noting the impressive amenities.
However, performances included unsettling elements, such as children singing in front of videos depicting ballistic missiles targeting aircraft carriers.
Footage from the trip uploaded to YouTube showed children dressed in red, white, and blue attire singing and marching in front of a projector showing a montage of exploding missiles and bursts of fire.
Seemingly unfazed by the violent display, the children continued their performance before the eyes of the stunned guests.
During their show, they were even heard singing lyrics including: 'Our leader is the world's best'.
At a foreign language school, a 15-year-old student expressed unwavering loyalty to the regime, stating: 'We are the happiest students in the world because our father [Kim Jong-un] provides for us.
'He provides our uniform, our shoes, our bags, and we don't need to worry about money.'
But the tourist recalled seeing baffling propaganda slogans scrawled across the walls of buildings around the town which read: 'We must do everything at the request of the masters'.
Some visitors were taken aback by the apparent indoctrination of the youth, who aspired to serve in the military to defend their nation.
Footage from the trip uploaded to YouTube showed children dressed in red, white, and blue attire singing and marching in front of a projector showing a montage of exploding missiles and bursts of fire
Joe Smith, a British national familiar with North Korea from previous trips, told the Telegraph that Rason appeared 'desolate, poorer, more spread out with a lack of restaurants' compared to the capital
Smith recalled the market's lively atmosphere seemed genuine, with locals reportedly surprised to see Western visitors
Despite the strict supervision and curated experiences, tourists noted an eerie warmth and hospitality of their North Korean hosts, who made concerted efforts to accommodate their guests, sometimes offering Western-style meals instead of local cuisine
For some tourists, like Filipino entrepreneur Riza Rasco, the trip marked the culmination of a quest to visit every country globally
Despite the strict supervision and curated experiences, tourists noted an eerie warmth and hospitality of their North Korean hosts, who made concerted efforts to accommodate their guests, sometimes offering Western-style meals instead of local cuisine.
Kyle Grau, a 21-year-old Australian video game developer, also embarked on the trip to assess North Korea's technological advancements.
He was astonished to discover that North Koreans had developed their own versions of popular Western smartphone games, such as a clone of 'Clash of Clans.'
Unlike in 2019, when smartphones had limited connectivity and users had to visit physical 'app stores' for software installations, North Korean players now engage in online clan wars using devices connected to the country's intranet.
Additionally, the nation has introduced its own versions of platforms akin to Amazon and China's WeChat, as well as a rendition of the musical game 'Piano Tiles' featuring propaganda songs.
Currently, Western tourists are confined to the Rason area, while Russian visitors reportedly have access to other parts of the country.
In February 2024, North Korea accepted about 100 Russian tourists, the first foreign nationals to visit the country for sightseeing.
That surprised many observers, who thought the first post-pandemic tourists would come from China, North Korea’s biggest trading partner and major ally.
A total of about 880 Russian tourists visited North Korea throughout 2024, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said, citing official Russian data. Chinese group tours to North Korea remain stalled.
Tour operators like Koryo Tours, established by British expatriates in Beijing during the 1990s to facilitate travel to North Korea, have scheduled multiple trips each month starting from March.
Tren de Aragua's deep global ties to terrorists helping them unleash carnage across the U.S.
Tren de Aragua, the gang that has unleashed a wave of crime across the US, is linked to Iran and Hezbollah and is even more terrifying than most Americans know, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.
However, experts who have tracked TdA, as the South American syndicate is known, have for the first time linked Tren de Aragua to Hezbollah - and are urging Americans not to mistake it for a simple street gang made of up of uneducated, young thugs.
'I don't like to call them a "gang" because they're a highly sophisticated network that goes all the way up to the (Nicolas) Maduro regime,' retired federal agent Victor Avila, Jr. told DailyMail.com.
'The connection that TdA has through Venezuela with terrorist organizations, with Iran and Hezbollah...for some reason people don't want to pick that up, they don't want to talk about it.'
For years, Iran and Venezuela's dictators have engaged in a bromance fueled by their mutual hatred for the US and its economic sanctions that have crippled both the governments in Tehran and Caracas.
Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terrorist organization based in Lebanon, has been welcomed by the Maduro regime, who has rolled out the red carpet so the extremists can 'operate freely', according to the Miami Herald.
Soldiers stand guard near a poster of the late leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, during a rally to commemorate him and to show support to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in Sanaa, Yemen October 4, 2024
In 2021, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush wrote an op-ed for the newspaper, urging the Biden administration that Hezbollah's presence in Venezuela posed a 'grave threat' to the United States.
Iran and Hezbollah in Venezuela
The two international pariahs have been chummy since former communist dictator Hugo Chavez lead Venezuela from 1999-2013.
After Chavez died of cancer, his hand-picked successor Nicolas Maduro, took the countries’ relationship to the next level.
Under Madro’s illegitimate rule (he remained in power despite losing elections in 2018 and 2023 in what's been called the 'mother of all electoral frauds') the South American nation 'become a forward operating base in the Western Hemisphere for Iranian forces,’ Bush wrote.
The alarming developments include Iran using an airline to send petroleum equipment to Venezuela’s state-run oil company.
Like a James Bond villain, Maduro sent stolen gold bars to Tehran, the US alleged in 2020.
'Maduro's thugs looted nine tons of gold bars and sent it to the Iranian regime,' U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted in May 2020.
'The world's leading thieves are partnering with the world's leading state sponsor of terror. The greatest victims are the Venezuelan and Iranian people.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on July 30, 2006 in Tehran, Iran
Venezuelans honor Iran's General Qasem Sulemani with mural. Suemani was killed in a drone strike by the US in 2020
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (C) and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (L) shake hands before an inter-delegation meeting at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezula on August 27, 2016
In this photo released Thursday, June 10, 2021, by the Iranian army, an Iranian warship moves in the Atlantic Ocean. Iran has dispatched two warships to the Atlantic Ocean, a rare mission to demonstrate the country's maritime power, state TV reported Thursday, without specifying the vessels' final destination
In a show of power, Iran’s leaders sent warships into the Atlantic Ocean for the first time ever to flex their military muscles in the West.
The two nations are also helping each other get around US sanctions, with Iran peddling Venezuela’s petroleum to China.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah has been welcomed with open arms with its members given legal residency in Venezuela. The move allows the Middle Easterners to legally travel on the South American continent.
The terrorist network has also been targeting Israelis living in Colombia and keeping tabs on Americans in Venezuela.
Now in new countries, Hezbollah is running illegal businesses and using their profits to finance their terrorist plots around the world.
In exchange, Iran and Hezbollah are beefing up Maduro's military capabilities, helping the country where most residents don’t own clothing dryers with the same sophisticated surveillance and drone technology it uses against Israel.
Maduro has been working on creating a ‘listening post’ in the northern part of his country to spy on airline and maritime communications, and is believed to be working on acquiring long-range missiles with Iran’s help.
‘The Maduro regime is essentially a cartel. They have the name of the “Cartel de los Soles,"' Miami immigration attorney Rolando Vazquez said in a interview with DailyMail.com.
'They are the largest cartel on this side of the hemisphere so all criminal organizations underneath him, if they’re not in line with them, they can’t operate.’
In Venezuela, being a TdA member carries a status symbol, and they are well known 'Chavisitas'-- loyal supporters of the communist regime that began with Hugo Chavez.
'These guys are "Chavisitas." These guys are communists, they're socialists,' Avila added.
'They have a very different ideology than anybody else. They have been trained since a young age to disregard authority.'
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, third left, reviews an honor guard as he is accompanied by his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi, left, during his official welcoming ceremony at the Saadabad Palace in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 11, 2022
A motorcyclist passes in front of a mural painted by the Venezuelan artist Nelson Santana and a brigade of the La Piedrita community depicting slain Iranian general Qasem Soleimani (L) alongside late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (R) at the 23 de Enero neighborhood in Caracas on January 4, 2023
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, right, and his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro shake hands at the conclusion of their joint news briefing at the Saadabad Palace in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 11, 2022
(L) Victor Avila is a retired Supervisory Special Agent with ICE-HSI U.S. Immigration and Customs (R) Rolando Vazquez is an immigration attorney in Miami, Florida and has strong ties to the Venezuelan community in the US
While many Venezuelans sought to kick him out of power only to be brutally squashed, other Venezuelans simply gave up and left, seeking refuge in other Latin American countries-- hoping to eventually return to their homeland.
As an exodus began, Tren de Aragua seized on the opportunity to exploit their own desperate countrymen and make money off them as they fled Venezuela-- charging them to leave their borders or enter new countries.
Many Venezuelans fled their homes to get away from the extreme poverty and corruption, but also from Marduro's henchmen, like TdA.
As the leader of the Cartel of the Suns, Maduro's government worked with the FARC, a paramilitary group in Colombia, to 'flood' the US with cocaine since 1999.
'These officials repeatedly and knowingly betrayed the people of Venezuela, conspiring, for personal gain, with drug traffickers and designated foreign terrorist organizations like the FARC,' then-DEA Acting Administrator Uttam Dhillon said.
With clandestine shipments through sea and flights to Honduras, called an 'air bridge' to Honduras, the Cartel of the Suns moved an estimated 250 or more tons of cocaine a year out of their country.
'As alleged, Maduro and the other defendants expressly intended to flood the United States with cocaine in order to undermine the health and wellbeing of our nation,' US Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman stated.
Additionally, prosecutors were hoping to stop the Cartel of the Suns, called that because the corrupt officials wear a sun insignias on their uniforms, from laundering their drug profits through banks and property in South Florida.
The Department of Justice announced a $15 reward for Maduro's arrest and multi-million rewards for his top lieutenants.
The DOJ released these images in 2020, as it charged top members of the Venezuela's government, including current President Nicolas Maduro, with being drug traffickers
In the superseding indictment, US prosecutors allege Venezuela's government trafficked tons of cocaine into the US. The feds claim the 'Cartel de los Soles,' which Madro leads, used an 'air bridge' to move the drugs into the US
Nicolas Maduro remains president of Venezuela despite stealing two elections, most recently in 2023
As pandemic travel restrictions were lifted around the globe, many Venezuelans looked to the US as an escape, with nearly 8 million people abandoning their homes for other countries, according to the United Nations.
As Venezuelans poured over the US's southern border, TdA members mixed in with asylum-seekers, posing as refugees.
Since Venezuela and the US do not have diplomatic relations, the two nations don't share criminal records-- meaning there was no way to properly vet Venezuelans arriving at the international boundary.
Criminal history would come back clean even for the worst Venezuelan criminals who crossed into the US as they were checked by US Border Patrol agents.
‘What Maduro did was send them over here for the purpose of expanding their operations and terrorizing and attacking US citizens,' Vasquez said.
‘In my opinion, what Maduro did was an act of war. He sent his agents here to attack us.'
As DailyMail.com first reported in 2023 when we broke the story about TdA arriving in the US, Maduro's soldiers went to cities across America, carrying out his orders.
'Think of them as the soldiers for these regimes,' Avila added.
'These are the guys who are actually on the ground carrying out the orders of whatever the regime wants to do. Is it going to be a terrorist attack? Is it going to be just murdering young girls and raping them?'
Under orders from the Maduro regime, Tren de Aragua got to work, establishing itself in the US while making money for their bosses back home.
TdA followed a model it repeated in several US cities of taking over apartment complexes in cities like Aurora, Colorado where they took over at least four rental properties.
'I believe that they’re setting up their network right now. These guys are setting up faster than MS-13 did. They’re getting into these apartment complexes and what they’re doing is they’re starting with prostitution,' John Fabbricatore, the former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for Colorado told DailyMail.com.
Two of the 19 individuals arrested during the Oct. 19 raid at the Palatia Apartments in San Antonio where authorities say Tren de Aragua had been operating
At least four of the people arrested on October 5 in San Antonio have been confirmed as gang members
Tren de Aragua gang tattoos (pictured above) were part of a Department of Homeland Security bulletin that was recently shared with federal agents
TdA has taken over at least four apartment buildings in the Denver area, exploiting and terrorizing their migrant neighbors.
A bombshell report by a law firm that represents one of the apartment management companies assaults, threats of murder, extortion and even child prostitution.
'Prostitution is a big money-maker, and the thing with prostitution is that it brings guys in that they can then sell dope to,' Fabbricatore explained.
'These guys come in, they meet these Johns and shake them down. See if they want to buy drugs. They’ve started with moving these girls through, and if you go in these apartments, you’ll see these young girls. It’s bad.’
The Aurora model was copied and pasted in four apartment complexes in San Antonio, Texas and likely many other American cities.
San Antonio's police chief warned of TdA members who were caught wearing red-colored clothing.
'Red is the color of Maduro’s political party. That’s why TdA wears red,' Vazquez shared.
In both Texas and Colorado, police arrested TdA members they classified as 'shot callers,' or 'enforcers.'
These mobsters with rank have direct ties to Maduro, law enforcement has confirmed.
Adelvis Jose Rodriguez-Carmona is one of four alleged Tren de Aragua members arrested in Chattanooga, Tennessee who has been linked to a sex trafficking ring by the authorities
'The connection that TdA has, through Venezuela to terrorist organizations-- with Iran and Hezbollah,' Avila said. 'They're not migrants. They're not refugees. They're not economic migrants. They are in a very separate category all by themselves, and it is the link to terrorism.'
When Trump took office in January, his administration promised to arrest criminal migrants as part of the largest mass deportation plan the Republican campaigned on.
At least a few dozens TdA members have been arrested in raids across the nation, however Immigrant and Customs Enforcement has not responded to request for an official tally.
Rounding them up is of the utmost importance, Avila believes, referring an order the gangsters have received, giving them the 'green light' to shot law enforcement in the US.
Already, suspected TdA members are accused of killing a federal immigration agent in Mexico, as he tried to stop them from reaching the US-Mexico border near El Paso, Texas.
'These guys don't care. They don't want to be confronted by any kind of authority, and that's what makes they very dangerous,' Avila warned.
