Top banker vanishes with Kim’s millions

A NORTH KOREAN banker is reported to have fled the country with £3 million (NZ$5.95m) from the personal slush fund of the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, in the most significant defection from the regime for nearly two decades.

Yun Tae Hyong, president of the Korea Daesong Bank, defected during a visit to Russia, taking money from the ‘‘ revolutionary fund’’, according to a source quoted in South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper.

The fund is at the disposal of Kim and is connected to ‘‘Bureau 39’’, a shadowy department accused by the United States Government of raising money through illegal activities such as manufacturing and spreading counterfeit currency and drugs.

Yun is reported requested asylum, but to the have North Korean authorities have asked Russia to hunt him down and hand him over. He would be the highestranking defector since Hwang Jang Yop, the regime’s chief ideologue, who fled in 1997.

His insights into the financial workings of the isolated government will be seized on by South Korea and the US as they consider ways of undermining the north.

Korea Daesong Bank was established in 1978, and opened a branch in Vienna two years later and one in Hong Kong in 1996.

It was put on a sanctions list by the US in 2010 for its alleged connections to illicit North Korean businesses, The US Treasury described it as a component of ‘‘Office 39’s financial network supporting North Korea’s illicit and dangerous activities’’.