Headquarters in Vienna

How North Korea finances regimes via taekwondo

Dropout: "Spies are smuggled abroad via the martial art of taekwondo."(Bild: AFP )

Vienna is considered a stronghold for spies: not only agents from Russia are active, North Korea also has a hotspot in the Danube metropolis. In an interview with "Krone", a defector reports on one of the totalitarian regime's perfidious ploys: "Spies are smuggled abroad via the martial art of taekwondo to obtain foreign currency and luxury goods."

It sounds a bit like an agent movie: martial arts masters pretending to run an ordinary sports club in order to spy in foreign countries and carry out smuggling operations - to finance the luxury life of a dictator and his deadly weapons of mass destruction. But this is exactly what trainers from the International Taekwondo Federation (ITF) have been proven to be doing on several occasions.

Surprisingly, the headquarters of this shady federation, which has around 35 million members and operates in more than 100 countries, is located in Vienna's 21st district. North Korean defector Jihyun Park explains how the system works in an interview with the "Krone" newspaper.