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A woman in her 40s who wanted to return to North Korea in order to see her son has been arrested and charged with violating the National Security Act for allegedly sending 130 tons of rice to the North Korean State Security Ministry. The photo shows a man looking at North Korea’s Peace Village across the border from the Daeseong Town Hall in Paju

A North Korean defector has been arrested and indicted for sending 130 tons of rice to North Korea's State Security Ministry as part of an effort to defect back to the North.

On Feb. 18, the Public Security Department of the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office reported that a 49-year-old North Korean woman has been indicted on suspicion of violating the National Security Law by providing material support to Pyongyang and preparing to return to the North. On two occasions last year, she sent 65 tons of rice to the North's secret police via a broker in China, for a total of 130 tons, valued at 105 million won (US$98,700). She is also accused of having remitted 80 million won (US$75,200) to the broker in order to send additional rice immediately before the Security Investigative Service of the Gyeonggi Southern District Police arrested her.

The Prosecutors' Office says that though there have been several instances of defectors going back to North Korea, rarely have they sent rice or other material support to government agencies in Pyongyang before their return.

In her deposition, the woman, who came to the South in 2011, said she wanted to go back in order to be reunited with her son. She has been in contact with Pyongyang's State Security Ministry since early last year and sent the rice as a pledge of allegiance to the North in order to avoid being punished for having defected. She earned the money to purchase the rice by running her own private business while living alone in Gyeonggi Province.

The State Security Ministry is both a police intelligence agency and counterespionage organization that captures and interrogates North Koreans trying to cross the border into China or who are already in China, and operates detention camps where such offenders are imprisoned. The ministry also conducts surveillance on human-rights organizations and Christian missionaries that help defectors.

By Kim Gi-seong, south Gyeonggi correspondent

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