It was reported that two men who were recently arrested on charges of cattle theft in Pochon County, Yanggang Province, North Korea, were sentenced to six months of labor training.
On the 26th, a Daily NK Yanggang Province source said, “Two men who stole a private cow from a town in Pochon-gun and ran away were arrested by the military safety department and were recently sentenced to six months in a labor training camp. They killed the stolen cows and sold them as meat. He was arrested based on a report,” he said.
It was reported that a family of residents in Bocheon-gun had their cows stolen by these men around mid-October, and that this family bought the cows at high usury this spring and had them stolen six months later.
The source said, “Farming in the countryside is much easier if you have cows, and in the spring, there is an opportunity to make money by plowing the fields of other households, so this generation borrows 10,000 Chinese yuan (about 1.93 million won) at usury. “I bought a cow,” he said.
According to sources, it is realistically difficult to farm with machines such as tractors in rural areas in North Korea. The explanation is that basic condensed milk is needed to use the machine, but the cost of condensed milk is a huge burden for residents, so they consider cows, which are not a huge financial burden, to be more useful.
Accordingly, a generation of residents in Bochon-gun also borrowed money to buy cows, but it is said that when the cows were stolen overnight, they immediately reported the situation to the county safety department. The goal was to prevent cattle thieves from escaping the county by having the 10 guard posts along major roads be notified of the incident.
The source said, “Pochon-gun is so small that rumors can spread overnight, so selling stolen cattle within the county is like saying, ‘Catch me.’ If you want to leave the county and go to another area to sell cattle, you have to go through the guard post anyway. “Then they could easily be caught, so the thieves planned to kill the cow and sell it as meat.”
In fact, the thieves slaughtered the cows as soon as they stole them and sold most of them to meat sellers at the market in Hyesan City. The remaining meat was said to be eaten at home or sold in small quantities within the county.
Then, he was caught by the county safety department after being reported by a resident who felt suspicious.
As a result of the military safety department’s investigation, the two men who committed the crime were found to be relatives, and it was reported that they stole the cow and slaughtered it at Kimchium, the home of one of them.
In the end, the cattle thieves were sentenced to six months of labor training and are currently living in a training camp, the source said.
Meanwhile, it is reported that residents who suffered damage when their cattle were stolen received only 1,500 yuan (about 290,000 won) back.
It is said that they even went to the criminals’ houses to try to get money somehow, but they were all so pitiful that people wondered if they were people’s houses, so they felt like they wanted to help, so they had no choice but to turn back.
The source said, “The household whose cattle were stolen only got 1,500 yuan out of the 10,000 yuan, and they are in a situation where they are deeply in debt with the remaining 8,500 yuan plus usury.” He added, “As life is difficult, the number of thieves continues to increase, and the affected residents are also suffering from poverty.” “A vicious cycle is being repeated, from which it is difficult to get out of the abyss,” he said.
Source: www.dailynk.com
