SEOUL - NORTH KOREANS who have fled to capitalist South Korea send an estimated US$10 million (S$12.8 million) a year to families left behind in the impoverished communist state, a report said on Monday.
South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper, citing Seoul officials and refugees, said the money has become a major part of the North's underground economy in border areas.
'With the number of North Korean defectors rapidly rising and diversified methods of money remittance, the total amount sent back is growing,' Chosun quoted a senior official as saying.
More than 20,000 refugees have come south since the end of the 1950-53 war, half of them in the past five years. There are no official ways for individuals to transfer money from South to North. Seoul bans all unauthorised contacts.
The remittances are arranged by brokers in China and in the North, who use their own bank accounts and cash reserves to transfer money with a commission of 30 per cent, Chosun said.
'Some North Koreans even say, 'That family lives so well because their child had an interest in the outside world. I wish my children had the guts to cross the border and send some money',' according to a refugee quoted by the paper. -- AFP
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