Workers of the world: Modern-day slave labor is being imported from North Korea into Russia despite a UN ban

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Demand for North Korean labor

A quick online search for “hire North Koreans” leads Russian employers to the website of a company called the Intergovernmental Migration Center (MMC). The site describes North Korean laborers as being in “high demand,” praising their “rich experience,” “hard work,” and “high efficiency.”

Under United Nations sanctions, signing labor contracts with North Korean nationals is strictly prohibited. But the MMC skirts this ban by presenting its North Korean laborers as students enrolled in educational programs. According to the site, the only legal way to bring North Koreans into Russia is through these “study-based” arrangements. Once in Russia, such “students” are put to work under the guise of “study training.” A 2020 reform in Russian migration law further widened this loophole by allowing foreign students to work without any limitation to their hours spent on the job.

The MMC is headed by Sergei Tkachuk, who since the 1990s has worked in organizations affiliated with Moscow City, the concentration of skyscrapers located on the western edge of the Russian capital. Until 2020, one of the co-founders of the MMC was the International Congress of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, a public organization currently led by Artem Chaika, the son of Russia’s former prosecutor general. Although formal ties between Chaika and MMC were severed in 2020, the company’s website still states that its work is carried out “within the framework and with the support” of Chaika’s congress.

Those interested in hiring North Korean workers are directed to a public Telegram channel, @mmcpersonal, where dozens of requests for labor are posted each week — some calling for crews as large as 5,000 workers.

Posing as an interested party, journalists from The Insider posted a message seeking labourers to work for an industrial concern. Within hours, MMC head Sergei Tkachuk responded personally, outlining the conditions for bringing North Korean migrants into the country.

“From the DPRK embassy, there are special requirements for employers planning to attract such workers,” Tkachuk explained. “Orders must be for at least 100 people, the company must be at least three years old, and must be financially sound.”

For each worker, employers must pay the North Korean embassy approximately $1,600 to cover medical exams, visas, health insurance, administrative fees, and — importantly — flight bookings from Pyongyang to Vladivostok, then onward to Moscow. Direct flights via North Korea’s state carrier, Air Koryo, officially resumed in August 2023 after a 3.5-year hiatus.

In addition, employers pay 20,000 rubles (about $250) per worker directly to Tkachuk for facilitating the service.

According to the migration center, North Korean workers typically labor 11 hours a day, six days a week. The company claims they are paid 60,000 rubles per month (roughly $765), or about 210 rubles per hour ($2.68) — though, as other reporting suggests, this money rarely reaches the workers themselves. Tkachuk noted that it was easiest to bring seamstresses and handymen into the country, as the North Korean side was routinely refusing to provide exit permits for construction workers.

Modern-day slaves from the DPRK

Pyongyang uses its labor force as a vital source of hard currency. In 2015, Marzuki Darusman, the former UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, reported that foreign employers paid the regime in Pyongyang “significantly higher amounts” than the workers themselves were told they were earning, allowing the government to collect an estimated $1.2 to $2.3 billion annually.

Meanwhile, the workers themselves often received little or nothing in exchange for working grueling shifts of up to 20 hours a day — all while living in conditions of constant surveillance and with insufficient food. In one of his messages, Tkachuk noted that each group of North Korean workers must include a designated “senior” supervisor — a minder tasked with overseeing and controlling the group on behalf of the regime.

The MMC claims that the selection and approval process for North Korean workers typically takes five to six months. For its role in the scheme, the Moscow-based Sodeystvie Arts and Humanities College — which is under South Korean sanctions — receives 3,500 rubles per worker per month ($45), plus 8.7% of the workers' actual wages.

Given that orders must be for at least 100 workers at a time, the institution likely earns at least half a million rubles per client each month. In 2024, the college’s year-on-year revenue rose by a factor of five, exceeding 75 million rubles (nearly $1 million).

According to Cedric Ryngaert, Head of the Department of International Law at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, given the findings of The Insider’s investigation are correct, Russia is likely to violate UN Security Council resolutions 2375 and 2397, both adopted in 2017. These resolutions, among other conditions, require member states to stop issuing work permits to North Korean labourers and repatriate all of them to their home country within 2 years.

This effort was focused on cutting off foreign currency earnings, which the DPRK used to fund weapon programs, including nuclear missiles. Interestingly, Russia and China, both permanent members of the Security Council with veto power, voted in favor of these sanctions.

Russia violates sanctions it once endorsed

Professor Ryngaert notes that Moscow is well aware the UN sanctions it supported cannot be easily repealed — likely motivating it to violate them covertly. According to Ryngaert, the UN lacks strong enforcement mechanisms, allowing member states to disregard measures without consequence:

“What we see are ‘paper tiger’ sanctions — resolutions that exist on paper but are not complied with in practice. What can happen more often in international law is decentralized enforcement: other member states of the UN could impose unilateral sanctions.”

Although Sergei Tkachuk insists the MMC's scheme is legal — because the North Koreans arrive as students on a “work practice” — Ryngaert dismisses this notion:

“I think Russia tries to complicate the situation, but if they knew these people are actually workers — this is just a legal artificial construction set up to evade sanctions. There’s connivance by [the] Russian authorities, as they would still have an obligation to check these people’s status.”

While it is not possible to calculate exactly how many North Koreans had entered Russia through this scheme, statistics reveal a sharp increase in the number of North Koreans entering the country under student visas.

According to the latest figures from Russia’s Federal Migration Service, a total of 13,221 North Koreans entered the country in 2024 (a twelvefold increase from 2023, when there were only 1,117 arrivals). Of these, roughly 60% (7,887) entered under the pretext of “education.” With Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hinting in September 2023 at Russia and China officially abandoning UN sanctions on North Korea, this statistic is now likely much higher.

Who in Russia is looking for North Korean workers?

The United Nations takes violations of its sanctions on North Korea seriously — so much as requesting North Korean labor can carry consequences. Some Russian clients provided full names and contact details in their inquiries, while others attempted to remain anonymous. The Insider was able to identify many members of the Telegram group that was set up for companies looking to request workers.

Requests to Sergei Tkachuk’s migration center have come from Sochi, Vladivostok, and even from Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine like Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk. Employers commonly seek seamstresses, construction workers, and agricultural laborers, but requests have also been made for nurses, nannies, and even dentists.

For example, Pyotr Popov, former deputy governor of Zabaikalsky Krai in eastern Siberia, requested 5,000 workers for a construction project. Popov heads Russia’s National Fund for the Support of Social and Economic Projects “Sodeystvie,” which offers insurance and pension services while promoting “social initiatives.”

In the food industry, Vladislav Kim, a Korean-Russian chef based in Saint Petersburg, requested 10 workers under contract to staff kitchens for his newly launched kimchi brand. The Zavolzhsky Meat Plant in Tver also submitted a request for 100 North Korean workers.

Representatives of other manufacturing sectors are eager to bring North Korean labor into the country. Natalia Titova, human resources director at Russian railroad equipment manufacturing company LocoTech-Signal LLC, a subsidiary of Transmashholding, made a request for at least 50 North Korean workers to work in the Moscow region. Ivan Vyuchnov, senior dentist at the ENDOVIEW clinic in Moscow, also enquired publicly about the possibility of importing dental assistants from North Korea.

With reporting by Sergei Ezhov.