Captured 7 Times on Military Surveillance Equipment During Defection to North Korea... But Missed (Comprehensive)

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] It has been confirmed that the North Korean defector Kim Mo (24), who recently defected to North Korea, was captured seven times by military surveillance equipment. However, frontline sentries mistook him for floating debris in the river and failed to recognize his defection to North Korea.

On the 31st, the Joint Chiefs of Staff announced that following an inspection of the defection incident at Wolmi Point, Ganghwa Island, Incheon, they have issued a stern warning to the Marine Corps Commander and the Capital Corps Commander, dismissed the commander of the 2nd Marine Division from his post, and plan to refer related personnel to the disciplinary committee.

The Joint Chiefs stated that after recognizing the defection on the 26th through North Korean reports and conducting an inspection until the 28th, they identified issues including ▲ measures to reinforce vulnerable points such as sluice gates ▲ active on-site actions by guards and surveillance personnel regarding suspicious points ▲ optimization and verification of normal operation of surveillance equipment such as thermal observation devices (TOD).

According to the investigation, Kim took a taxi and got off near Yeonmijeong at 2:18 a.m. on the 18th, but the sentry at the civilian control line post about 200 meters away saw the taxi lights but neither confirmed nor reported it to superiors. Then, at around 2:34 a.m., Kim moved to a drainage channel near Yeonmijeong and entered the Han River at 2:46 a.m., the Joint Chiefs confirmed. It took only 12 minutes to escape through the drainage channel.

Regarding the drainage channel, although there were double obstacles, the rebar obstacles were old and partially damaged, making it passable for a 'person of average build,' according to the Joint Chiefs. After entering the Han River, Kim began heading toward North Korean territory using the current and was confirmed to have arrived in North Korea around 4 a.m.

In particular, the entire process from Kim entering the Han River near the Yeonmijeong outpost to arriving in North Korean territory was captured a total of seven times by military surveillance equipment: five times by short- and mid-range surveillance cameras and twice by thermal observation devices (TOD). The military failed to detect the initial situation, such as the drainage channel escape, and although subsequent events were captured by surveillance equipment, identification was difficult.

The Joint Chiefs announced plans to conduct a thorough inspection of areas immediately behind the fences accessible to civilians to prevent recurrence. They also intend to strengthen regular mobile patrols. Additionally, all sluices and drainage channels in all units will be inspected to promptly establish reinforcement measures for security vulnerabilities.

Meanwhile, during the investigation, the Joint Chiefs also belatedly confirmed that there was an error in the transmission program of the Network Video Recorder (NVR), which stores real-time footage as a 'backup' of the TOD recorded video. According to the Joint Chiefs, the TOD team leader confirmed on the 23rd, before the defection was known through North Korean reports, that there was a malfunction in the recording function of the equipment and later stated that all footage before the 23rd was deleted due to storage capacity issues. However, the investigation concluded there was no intentionality as the defection incident itself was unknown at the time. Accordingly, the military recovered 64 deleted files from early May 2019 to the 23rd of this month for the investigation but failed to recover TOD footage filmed between 10 p.m. on the 17th and 5 a.m. on the 18th. The Joint Chiefs also revealed that cases where neither recorded footage nor backup footage exist were additionally confirmed three times besides the defection incident.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.