"North Koreans working as "forced laborers" in Poland"
The magazine was able to confirm that North Koreans are employed as manual workers in multiple locations across the country with their salaries apparently traveling through a network of companies directly into the pocket of the dictatorial Workers' Party.
VICE also learned that Polish businesswoman Cecylia Kowalska, who runs Armex and Alson, also co-founded a Polish company Wonye — Korean for "horticulture" — with two North Korean men in 2015.
According to Kowalska, this business is inactive. But when VICE traveled to the Polish address at which one of the North Korean founders is registered, they discovered it was a gas station 15 miles south of Warsaw situated close to a large tomato-growing warehouse where locals said North Koreans worked.
This North Korean founder's name is Kang Hong-gu, according to the company registration. There was only one person by this name registered in Pyongyang in a population register for 2004 obtained by VICE, and he had the same birth year as that listed for the Kang Hong-gu in the Polish company registration documents.
According to information in the Pyongyang population register, Kang served as a brigade commander in the North Korean military as recently as 2004.
The Polish Department of Labor was unable to tell VICE how many North Korean laborers are currently in Poland, nor why no action was being taken regarding the credible evidence that they were working under illegal conditions.
Read more at VICE News