A Chongjin medicine trader lost her entire stock in October 2026 after refusing a police officer’s demand for free drugs, winning back her goods only by paying an even larger bribe. Her case shows how North Korea’s crackdown on private trade feeds everyday corruption.
A joint inspection team seized all of her medicine in early October, a Daily NK source in North Hamgyong province said on Friday. She managed to recover the goods only in the second half of the month. Chongjin, the provincial capital and North Korea’s third-largest city, is a major hub for goods smuggled from China.
The woman graduated from a pharmacy college and once worked in a hospital pharmacy. Her salary and state rations stopped arriving regularly, so she quit and went into the private medicine trade. For more than two decades, she has supplied small drug sellers who lack the money to buy stock in bulk.
Private sellers like her fill a gap that the state health system cannot. Pyongyang touts its free healthcare, but most North Koreans turn to the black market for medicine instead. Drug prices at the jangmadang, or private markets, have climbed so high that many people skip medicine altogether when they fall ill.
Most of the drugs she handled came from China through smuggling networks along the border. That put them squarely among the items North Korean authorities target in their crackdowns. Officials have repeatedly cracked down on private drug sellers even as shortages worsen across the country.
Agents from enforcement agencies regularly burst into her home to inspect her stock and threaten her, warning that they would confiscate every last pill while hinting that a payment could settle the matter. She would plead with them and press U.S. dollars or expensive medicines into their hands. That kept her business alive, but she lived in constant fear of the next raid.
A Chongjin medicine trader’s one complaint backfires
When the agents disliked a bribe, they returned with even harsher threats. They also dropped by whenever they or their relatives fell sick and left with free medicine. In their view, she owed them for turning a blind eye to her trade.
Her frustration grew as the abuse dragged on, and it finally boiled over this month. A police officer came to her asking for medicine for a sick relative, but she snapped at him that he should pay at least something for once. Soon after, a joint inspection team that included the officer raided her and seized everything she had.
The officer works for the Ministry of Social Security, North Korea’s national police agency. Joint inspection teams pull together officials from the police, prosecutors and other agencies to root out what the regime calls “anti-socialist” behavior, including illegal trade and unlicensed sales. Prosecutors have also targeted pharmacies that sell above state-set prices in recent years.
“She had handed over medicine whenever they asked and paid them bribes all along,” the source said. “This happened the very first time she ever asked them for money. Without her medicine, she could not keep her business going or even put food on the table, so she had to get it back.”
In the end, the trader paid a far larger bribe than ever before to recover her goods, finally getting the medicine back sometime after mid-October, the source said. Security agents in North Pyongan province have similarly confiscated rice from market traders on the spot under state price controls.
Word of the case has since spread through Chongjin and nearby areas of North Hamgyong province, with market vendors criticizing the agents for abusing their power over small traders. Some North Koreans now say private medicine traders are little more than hostages of the officials who police them.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
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October 30, 2026 at 10:55PM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)