Original subtitles

It began when an unknown man from Denmark approached me

with a proposition.

This is him in his tiny apartment in the outskirts of Copenhagen.

If this was a piece of fiction,

no-one would believe that he would be meeting

with North Korean arms dealers in Africa...

You can walk in here no problem.

..or going to the North Korean embassy in Sweden

to pick up secret documents.

If something happened, embassy does know nothing about this.

Exactly.

But this is no fiction.

Everything you are about to see is real,

and has been going on for more than ten years.

This is him aged 14, somewhere in Denmark.

He is celebrating his birthday.

Among the guests are children who grew up

in the communist dictatorship East Germany.

Many years later, as a grown man, he will claim that

befriending these kids and learning about the horrors

of a totalitarian regime made him decide to infiltrate and expose

the most brutal dictatorship of all...

..North Korea.

It's a nice explanation, but exactly why he chose to place himself

in mortal danger is also beside the point.

What only matters here is that he is a mole.

In the end, I had to hire an expert to help me sort it out.

Annie Machon is a contentious figure in the intelligence world,

but this does not concern me.

I am only interested in her skills in debriefing agents.

So, Annie, the mole arrived last night?

Mm-hm. And soon he's ready for you?

Do you have concerns?

Maybe...we should discuss that after you have met the mole.

Hi, Ulrich. I'm Annie.

Hi, Annie. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. Thank you.

I used to work for the British Security Service,

otherwise known as MI5, and part of my job as an intelligence officer

was to debrief agents.

So the film team has asked me in to debrief you

about your life over the last ten years.

Yes.

Can you tell me a little bit more about him? His background?

Erm, you know, if he would rob a bank,

you would not be able to describe him.

Mm-hm. Erm...

He blends in. He blends in. Perfect.

So, how did you get interested in North Korea?

Oh, it's a long story.

It is a long story, so I will speed it up.

Back in 2006, as a journalist from Denmark, I went to North Korea

and shot a documentary called The Red Chapel.

The regime in Pyongyang really hated my film,

and because of that, I can never travel back to North Korea.

Seen from a western point of view, the film has its moments,

but it does not offer up the smoking gun,

the irrefutable proof that North Korea is an evil

and criminal enterprise.

Ever since, I have been on a quest to prove these points,

yet being forever banned from the Chamber of Secrets.

But back in Denmark, the man who I prefer to call the mole saw my film,

and somehow it gave him the idea that he could travel

to North Korea in my place.

Approximately ten years ago, out of nowhere, he wrote and asked

if I would be interested in doing a film about him

infiltrating the Danish North Korean Friendship Association.

So... I mean, what happened?

Can you talk me through exactly the first steps you took in this,

and the sort of thought process you were going through?

I told him it could be of interest if it would evolve to something

of international importance,

because the Danish North Korean Friendship Association in itself

is a fairly depressing group of people. Mm-hm.

He said, "Please keep me posted if it's interesting,"

and I was like, "OK."

I also told him, "I will never be able to pay you any money,"

so that is not of importance for him,

and then he just kept on going.

The mole went down the rabbit hole and discovered a bizarre world

of Danish senior citizens who are true friends of North Korea.

MAN SPEAKS DANISH

Slowly but surely, the mole advanced in the hierarchy

and became a member of the board,

working under chairman Anders Kristensen,

a die-hard communist.

Here you have him back in his heyday, meeting with

the founder of North Korea, Eternal President Kim Il-sung,

grandfather of the current ruler, Kim Jong-un.

All the time, the mole was filming, the excuse being that he was

making movies for YouTube about his work as a board member.

So, how did things progress for you once you were a member,

and on the board?

The mole went to North Korea,

and the North Koreans took a liking to him.

His main contact person in North Korea was a man named Kang,

who works for the Ministry of Cultural Affairs.

Kang is a key person in this tale of deceit and intrigue.

Everywhere he went in North Korea, the mole was filming.

Of course, he also brought his camera when he was awarded a medal,

recognising his work for the regime.

OK, congratulations. Thank you.

So when did things really start to move?

Could you confirm that this is a photograph of him?

Amongst the friends of the regime in Pyongyang,

Alejandro Cao de Benos is the biggest friend.

Compared to a small group

such as the Danish North Korean Friendship Association,

the Korean Friendship Association is the international lodge

for people who consider North Korea to be heaven on Earth.

Alejandro Cao de Benos is the founder

of the Korean Friendship Association

and is known around the world as the gatekeeper of North Korea.

As such, Alejandro Cao de Benos was my tour guide and access ticket

when I travelled to North Korea back in 2006.

Here, we are posing for a North Korean newspaper.

Spending time with him, I found it hard to understand why Alejandro,

who was born in Spain and lives in Spain,

has chosen a life as a cheerleader for North Korea.

According to the UN, North Korea starves, abuses

and kills its own citizens on a daily basis,

but Alejandro Cao de Benos considers all that to be fake news.

I also discovered that his preferred foods are French pastry and candies,

which is, I guess, the perfect diet for a supervillain.

Do you think Alejandro's dangerous?

APPLAUSE

You're a Spanish aristocrat

representing the North Korean regime. What's in it for you?

APPLAUSE

So you meet him in Pyongyang, and then you go back to Europe,

and then your second meeting is when you go to Spain. Yeah.

Can you tell me a little bit about that meeting?

So what did Alejandro want from you?

And so the mole began channelling his way through

the Korean Friendship Association, hoping to find the secrets

of this global club for friends of Pyongyang.

Advised by me, the mole had a professional cameraman

enrolled in KFA Denmark as his personal assistant.

Is Alejandro aware of the personal aspects of your life?

A lot of time because, in his real life, the mole is a retired chef

who lives on welfare subsidies from the government

because of some sort of chronic disease

which prevents him from working.

He is married with children and resides in the suburbs

of Copenhagen, living a seemingly normal life.

As such, he is the best mole you could ever want.

MUSIC PLAYS

That's quite a quick leap up.

So what were your responsibilities in that?

This is Ulrich out of Copenhagen. Here's what he had to say.

So, Andre, he's really picking up on that theme

that Dermot had about a smear against North Korea.

Do you happen to know if he's told his wife what he was doing?

I don't think so. Mm.

What did your wife say when you went home smelling of that strange scent?

Mm-hm.

LINE RINGS

Why does Alejandro like the mole? What does he see in the mole?

Alejandro Cao de Benos begins putting pressure on the mole.

He wants him to source for businessmen who will invest

in North Korea.

So the main part, really, is raising business and investment. Yeah.

In a debriefing filmed in Denmark back in 2013,

the mole was already talking about KFA president Alejandro Cao de Benos

wanting him to find investors.

But investing in North Korea is tricky business

because of the tough UN sanctions

levelled against the cash-starved regime.

NEWSREEL: The new sanctions include a ban on exports of

North Korean goods such as machinery and electrical equipment.

Since no-one in their right mind would throw money at North Korea,

I decided to invent a fake investor in order for the mole to find out

what exactly Alejandro Cao de Benos had in mind.

I forgot to mention there is another person involved in this.

That person is Mr James.

His real name is Jim,

and he was chosen by me to perform the role as Mr James,

a man of international mystery.

In real life, Jim is a former member of the French Foreign Legion

who later went on to become a jetset cocaine pusher in Copenhagen.

In the end, he was caught and served eight years in jail,

and now works and lives as a legitimate businessman.

In my mind, he was tailor-made for extreme role-playing.

So I had the mole invite Alejandro to come to Oslo in Norway