<p>For years, North Korea has quietly dispatched an army of IT workers overseas—not to innovate, but to infiltrate. Disguised as freelancers, they apply for jobs, breach systems, and wire stolen funds back to Pyongyang. This week, a rare conversation with one of them—a defector—about the regime’s digital underworld, and the personal toll of escaping it.</p>

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For years, North Korea has quietly dispatched an army of IT workers overseas—not to innovate, but to infiltrate. Disguised as freelancers, they apply for jobs, breach systems, and wire stolen funds back to Pyongyang. This week, a rare conversation with one of them—a defector—about the regime’s digital underworld, and the personal toll of escaping it.

Mic Drop: A former North Korean IT worker speaks