The government is cracking down on a growing number of brokers and scammers who exploit North Korean defectors staying here.

The North Korean Refugees Foundation under the Unification Ministry has recently received 41 complaints and petitions from defectors in the month since February, the ministry said Sunday.

The ministry of has requested police to investigate the six most serious cases, including one in which a broker coercively tried to collect money from North Korean defectors or cajoled them into taking a false exile to a third party nation.

The ministry referred 16 other cases to the National Intelligence Service and the Ministry of Employment and Labor to verify the facts.

Many of the defectors have lost their state subsidy for settlement and fallen into debt.

In one complaint, a female defector said, “A broker to whom I had never told my address came to my house and threatened to send me back to the North unless I give him money (the commission fee for defection).”

Some brokers made defectors purchase expensive products like cars or mobile phones to partially cover costs needed for exile to a third-party nation, then resold them and took the proceeds. The refugee application, however, was rejected and the defectors drowned in debt.

Those illegal practices make it hard for defectors to settle down in the South after seeking freedom and fleeing the autocratic nation, putting their lives at risk.

About 25,000 North Korean defectors have settled in South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)