By Salma El-Sakka
A report by the Hague-based rights group Global Rights Compliance (GRC) has exposed a Russian broker network sponsored by Pyongyang that brings North Korean workers to Russia under the guise of student visas, subjecting them to forced labor in violation of United Nations sanctions.
Workers enter on student visas
To evade a UN ban on hiring North Korean workers overseas, the workers are enrolled in Russian colleges on student visas before being contracted out to employers. Brokers receive commissions of up to 150,000 roubles ($1,860) per worker, according to the report, which cites open-source information, facial recognition analysis, and undercover investigations by GRC researchers posing as prospective employers.
Exploitative conditions and coercion
The workers are deployed at production sites, including a military rations factory, and forced to work 12-hour days with only two days off per month. Advertisements assure employers that workers will not “run away,” and the report says coercion and threats of retribution against the workers and their families keep them on the job.
North Korea profits from wages
North Korean officials from the embassy in Moscow have been identified inspecting work sites, and the state takes the bulk of the wages earned. “These workers do not come cheap, yet little, if any, of the money paid for their labour reaches them,” said GRC lead investigator Dyland Carter. “Instead, it lines the pockets of the DPRK state.”
UN sanctions and noncompliance
A 2017 UN Security Council resolution imposed a blanket ban on the employment of North Korean workers abroad and mandated their repatriation. Russia and China, both permanent Security Council members that voted for the ban, have since been accused by South Korea and Western nations of failing to comply with the sanctions regime.
Broader military cooperation
The forced labor network operates amid deepening military ties between Moscow and Pyongyang. Since 2024, North Korea has sent more than 10,000 troops to fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine and has supplied weapons to replenish Moscow’s arsenal, according to South Korean intelligence.
