North Korean diplomat defects to South in latest high-profile escape

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Photo / KCNA via AP

North Korea's acting ambassador to Kuwait reportedly defected with his family to South Korea in 2019, the latest in a series of revelations of escapes by top officials that are expected to infuriate the authoritarian regime.

The secret defection of Ryu Hyun-woo was unveiled today by two sources in the defector community, and raises questions about the loyalty of the country's elite to the ruling Kim dynasty at a time when the country is beset with crippling financial woes.

Ryu was serving as the embassy's charge d'affaires after So Chang-sik, the ambassador, was expelled from Kuwait because of a 2017 United Nations resolution aimed at curbing the pariah state's overseas diplomatic missions.

Ryu's defection was first reported by South Korea's Maeil Business newspaper and backed up by Thae Yong Ho, who was North Korea's deputy ambassador to the UK and one of the highest profile defections when he fled in 2016 to Seoul.

A defector from North Korea has become the first refugee from there to win a seat in South Korea's parliament.

30,000+ people have fled to the south, and about half report discrimination. Thae Yong Ho said he wasn't sure "Gangnam residents would take a guy from the North." pic.twitter.com/shnigmN1ss

— AJ+ (@ajplus) April 17, 2020

Thae is now a legislator in the South.

Thae said Ryu defected shortly after Jo Song Gil, a senior North Korean diplomat who disappeared from Italy in late 2018 with his wife and who later resurfaced in South Korea.

Ryu is believed to be the son-in-law of Jon Il Chun, who once oversaw a ruling Worker's Party bureau responsible for managing the Kim family's secret coffers, dubbed Room 39.

Kuwait had been a key source of foreign currency for Pyongyang, which sent thousands of labourers, mostly for construction projects.

Overseas workers were worth an estimated US$500 million ($695m) to Pyongyang before the United Nations ordered their repatriation by the end of 2019 under its sanctions regime to curb the North's nuclear weapons programme.

Ryu was reported as saying that he had decided to defect to "let my children have a better future".

Members of the Supreme People's Assembly attend a meeting in Pyongyang, North Korea on January 17. Photo / KCNA via AP

Thae has also spoken of disillusionment with the totalitarian regime after living on the outside and of the desire to "give freedom" to his children, calling for other officials to follow suit.

"I want to deliver to my colleagues working around the world and North Korean elites that there is an alternative to North Korea, and the door is open," he said in an interview at the recent Reuters Next conference.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service declined to comment.