North Korea has covertly developed a weapon whose secret the superpowers believed they alone possessed: the nuclear bomb. How has this country, ostracized by the international community and one of the world’s poorest nations, managed to build up such an arsenal? Five years of investigation will reveal, clearly and simply, the secrets behind the financing of North Korea’s nuclear weapons. A film revolving around the testimonies of the men and women at the heart of the system: the financier of the regime, the diplomat as well as the ‘little hands’, these North Korean workers sent abroad, who make the regime between 1,2 and 2,3 billion euros a year (according to UN estimates). Each year Pyongyang sends tens of thousands of North Korean workers outside the borders of the ‘Hermit state’, and rents them out to more than 40 countries across the world where they will be working in very difficult conditions, in isolation, permanently monitored by agents of the state in order to prevent them making contact with the outside or defecting. First-hand accounts of men and women who have played a role in this well-oiled system are extremely rare because defections are rare. Those who flee not only put their lives at risk but those of their families back home. This documentary reveals an ongoing tragedy, that of the Dictator’s Men working in the wings to bring cash into the country at all costs and ensure the regime’s survival.
