Hacker News Reader

Comment by wodenokoto | Hacker News Reader

    He said he was offered a used car worth $10,000
    if he could get a banner and was also told that
    if he was detained and didn't return, $200,000
    would be paid to his mother in the form of a
    charitable donation.

The article goes on to say that confessions are usually retracted once the accused is let free.

This seems really weird to me. I get that a college student would see it fun to steal a propaganda banner from North Korea and not realise how severe such punishment could possibly be.

I don't see how anyone would want to pay $10.000 for a banner, let alone risk $200.000 for its attempted acquisition.

But assuming this is a story the accused gave under duress from the North Korean regime, seems even more crazy.

I really don't know what to believe.

View on HN

That monetary bit raised an eyebrow here too - either that's a forced and false confession or weird behaviour by a church. The CIA isn't entirely unknown to operate through front organisations (they almost always do).

That said, more likely is the bit about the Z society, who have a track record of getting their supplicants variously arrested and killed over the last century and a bit, who were probably the ones actually pushing the idea.

I don't get why NK would think that story is particularly good.

It just seems odd from every angle, except the Z-society, if we are willing to believe they are grade A assholes who would put up a fake monetary reward to convince someone to get in a lot of trouble.

Oh, the monetary award is likely real - the collective worth of their members is in the billions.

> I don't get why NK would think that story is particularly good.

From the history of their actions, they don't seem to have very brilliant people in charge ;)

This has nothing to do with "the crime" of stealing a banner. I suspect the story was made-up not by the student but by some official in government. To them, it sounds more plausible that someone would do this for a 10000 payout than simply for the satisfaction of having kick-ass dorm-room swag from North Korea.

Whatever the story is, it doesn't matter. The NK government is perhaps batshit crazy, but they're not stupid. The detainee is going to be a bargaining chip.

Exactly this. And it helps NK's preferred narrative if he was somehow manipulated by forces larger than himself--both because it makes Americans look desperate for any material advantage they can get, and because it makes the crime more easily forgiven when/if he is ultimately released.

I figure it's basically a coded ransom demand. "There, we've made it clear we don't care about reality, there's no way to lawyer out of this, we've got him and we mean to keep him, unless you can make an offer to change our minds?"

Who does the story have to be good for? Kim doesn't give a shit if anyone believes it or not outside of NK, and will execute anyone who questions it from within.

Do you maybe have any references about the deaths linked to the Z society? Googling does not yield much.

> I really don't know what to believe.

It's really difficult to collect the facts. All pieces that circulate today seem to come from the same source.

- The AP report (essentially a North Korean press release)

- Warmbier's confessions (as real as a theatre play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYUMImDfhoo)

Doesn't seem to be sufficient to comment on the 'severe' crime or the punishment. Fingers crossed to have Warmbier home soon, and hear it all at first-hand.

Thank you for the link. The idea that he "robbed" some Koreans of seeing a slogan and thus lowering morale never crossed my mind.

I could absolutely believe someone would pay $10,000 for a genuine piece of North Korean propaganda and not some bit of tourist tat. But I also don't believe that someone did.

This is a sad story. Poor guy must be terrified.

I do have a unique genuine piece of North Korean propaganda for sale if anyone is interested. It's a hand-painted poster for a state opera called 'Sea of Blood'. Contact me if interested: http://imgur.com/LKiYMWD $10,000

Steve Donahoe?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com