North Korean workers ‘for sale’ online: how a Russian broker network disguised forced labour as student visas

North Korean workers are being marketed to Russian companies on an online platform, placed in factories — including one that makes military rations — and kept on the job through threats against them and their families, according to a nine-month undercover investigation by a Hague-based human rights group.

The report, published on Thursday 29 October 2026 by Global Rights Compliance (GRC), describes a broker network run by a Moscow businessman that sells North Korean labour to Russian employers while disguising the workers as students. The workers enter Russia on student visas, are fictitiously enrolled at Russian colleges, and are then sent for so-called “practical training” at the companies that hired them — an arrangement the report says is designed to get around United Nations sanctions on employing North Korean workers abroad.

The findings land at a moment when Moscow and Pyongyang have grown closer than at any time in decades. Since 2024, North Korea has sent more than 10,000 troops to fight alongside Russian forces in the war in Ukraine, according to South Korea’s intelligence agency, and the two countries signed a partnership treaty including a mutual defence pact. The labour scheme described in the report is, in the investigators’ view, the civilian mirror of that military partnership: North Korea supplies people, Russia supplies work, and the money flows back to Pyongyang.

At a glance

What happened: Global Rights Compliance, a human rights group based in The Hague, published a report on 29 October 2026 saying a Russian broker network has been supplying North Korean workers to Russian factories in exploitative conditions and in breach of UN sanctions. The workers arrive on student visas and are contracted out to employers, including a factory making military rations.

Why it matters: The report alleges much of the workers’ pay is taken by the North Korean state, with overseas forced labour estimated to generate hundreds of millions of dollars a year for Pyongyang’s weapons programme — while Russia uses the workers to plug labour shortages in its war economy.

What happens next: The European Union has already sanctioned the businessman named as running the network. Whether the United Nations, the EU or national governments take further action — and whether Moscow or Pyongyang respond to the allegations at all — is now the open question.

How the scheme works

At the centre of the report is an online platform called KNDR.su. “KNDR” is the abbreviation for North Korea in Russian, and the site markets North Korean workers directly to Russian employers. According to GRC, the platform is run by Moscow businessman Vladimir Sokolov, who has led the Black Horse Group, a company that imports machinery from China and Europe, since 2007. The investigators posed undercover as prospective employers and spoke to Ruslan Zhukov, the network’s operations director. Zhukov confirmed that North Korean labourers had been working in Russia since 2025 and that orders were accepted in groups of at least 50 workers, with a commission of 100,000 to 150,000 roubles per worker — roughly $1,240 to $1,860 at the exchange rate cited by Reuters.

The student-visa disguise is the key to the whole operation. The workers are listed as students at Russian colleges, which allows them to obtain student visas, and are then placed with host companies for “practical training”. Because they are officially students rather than employees, there is no formal employment contract — and, in the network’s own argument, no employment relationship for labour law to apply to. When investigators asked Zhukov about potential labour law violations, he replied that since the workers were students, labour laws did not apply.

In 2025, Russia issued 36,413 visas to North Koreans — around four times as many as in 2024 — and more than 98 per cent were student visas, according to figures cited in the report. South Korean intelligence estimates more than 50,000 North Korean labourers are now in Russia.

The report also describes a layer of state involvement that, in the investigators’ view, makes this more than a private business. Companies that want to use North Korean workers must first undergo an on-site inspection visit by North Korean embassy officials as part of a certification process. GRC says it used facial recognition technology to identify North Korean officials from the country’s Moscow embassy inspecting work sites. In other words, the report alleges, Pyongyang is not merely aware of the network — it helps run it.

The conditions workers face

The report paints a grim picture of daily life for the workers. Advertisements on the platform promise employers 12-hour working days with only two days off each month. The investigators found that in practice workers laboured for up to 18 hours a day, six to seven days a week. They also found that workers hand over up to 90 per cent of their earnings to the North Korean authorities.

What keeps the workers in place, according to the report, is fear. Their movement is restricted, and they are kept on the job through coercion and threats of retribution against them and their families back home. One advertisement cited in the report assured prospective employers that the workers would not “run away”. The investigators say the broker network relies on restrictions on workers’ movement and the threat of “serious consequences in their country” for anyone who breaks a contract.

“These workers do not come cheap, yet little, if any, of the money paid for their labour reaches them,” said Dylan Carter, a GRC lead investigator. “Instead, it lines the pockets of the DPRK state,” he added, using the shortened form of North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Carter put the wider point bluntly: “In Russia, slave labour has become a commodity that can be accessed with just a few clicks. Under the thin guise of educational exchange, groups of North Korean workers are openly advertised online and sold like products.”

The factories named in the report

The investigation identified nine workplaces connected to the network. The most detailed example is KPP Ruskon, a producer of military rations and canned and preserved foods in Moscow Oblast. The report says North Korean embassy officials visited the site, and footage confirmed that around 30 North Korean workers were present there — though investigators estimate the true number is likely higher, because the broker network’s minimum order is 50 workers.

Another site named is Agrisovgas, a US-sanctioned metalworking plant in Kaluga Oblast, which North Korean embassy officials inspected as a potential employer.

The military connection matters because it is central to the report’s argument about why the scheme exists. GRC’s legal adviser, Elise Lauriot Prevost, said the investigation exposed “a dangerous convergence between two states’ military ambitions”. Those ambitions, she said, were “North Korea’s use of overseas forced labour to finance its weapons programme, and Russia’s growing reliance on labour to sustain its war economy.”

That framing fits the wider pattern of the Moscow–Pyongyang relationship. The two countries dramatically deepened military and political ties after their leaders pledged renewed cooperation at a summit in 2023, and a mutual defence pact is a cornerstone of the partnership treaty they signed the following year. Alongside the troops and weapons North Korea has supplied for the war in Ukraine, the report suggests, it is now also supplying workers for the factories that keep Russia’s war economy running.

Why it matters: sanctions, money and the war economy

The scheme would be a direct breach of international sanctions. After North Korea’s sixth and most recent nuclear test in 2017, the UN Security Council imposed a blanket ban on hiring North Korean workers overseas and required countries to send them home. Russia and China, both permanent members of the Council, voted for the ban — but South Korea and Western governments have since accused them of not complying.

The money involved is substantial. A Multinational Sanctions Monitoring Team estimated in September that between 35,600 and 101,280 North Korean overseas workers earned $450 million to $800 million last year — income the report says is channelled into the military-industrial complex behind North Korea’s ballistic missile programme.

The arrangement also solves a problem for Russia. The war in Ukraine has drained the Russian labour market, after hundreds of thousands of men were mobilised or killed and many others left the country. Factories producing food, clothing and equipment for the military need workers, and North Korean labourers — cheap, controlled and unable to leave — are, from the employers’ point of view, an attractive option.

What the new report describes is not the invention of overseas North Korean labour — it is its industrialisation, organised through a website, priced per worker, and operating at a scale suggested by the sharp rise in student visas.

What the accused and the authorities say

The findings have not gone unchallenged. The group contacted two Russians identified as key figures in the network; only one replied, denying the accusation. Zhukov denied any connection to the Black Horse network and insisted the North Koreans were students, not workers. Russia’s foreign ministry and the North Korean embassy in Moscow did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Sokolov was sanctioned by the European Union on Monday 12 October 2026, with his assets frozen, for promoting industrial cooperation projects with North Korea — a little over two weeks before the GRC report was published, suggesting European governments were already aware of his activities.

It is important to be clear about the limits of what is known. The report is the work of a human rights organisation, not a court, and its findings rest on undercover work, open-source information and facial recognition analysis — methods that are powerful but not the same as a criminal investigation. The central figures deny wrongdoing, and neither the Russian nor the North Korean government has responded to the allegations.

What happens next

The immediate question is whether other governments follow the EU’s lead. The report hands them names, a website, workplaces and visa figures, and UN sanctions already make employing North Korean workers illegal. Enforcement, however, has always been the weak point: sanctions depend on member states policing their own territory, and Russia, as a permanent member of the Security Council, can block collective action against itself.

A second question is whether the student-visa route will be closed. The figures — 36,413 visas in 2025, almost all for students — point to an obvious choke point, but closing it would require diplomatic pressure that has so far been absent.

A third question concerns the workers themselves. The report’s most disturbing findings are not about geopolitics but about people: workers putting in 18-hour days, handing over almost all of their pay, and staying because they fear what would happen to their families if they left. Any response that focuses only on sanctions and misses the workers — their safety, their families and their right to leave — would miss the point of the investigation entirely.

Frequently asked questions

What is the KNDR.su platform?

KNDR.su is an online platform that markets North Korean workers to Russian companies. According to the Global Rights Compliance report, it is run by Moscow businessman Vladimir Sokolov. “KNDR” is the abbreviation for North Korea in Russian. Companies can order workers in groups of at least 50, paying a commission of 100,000 to 150,000 roubles per worker.

How do North Korean workers get into Russia if UN sanctions ban their employment?

According to the report, the workers enter Russia on student visas. They are fictitiously enrolled at Russian colleges and then placed with host companies for “practical training”. Because they are officially students, there is no formal employment contract, which the network argues means labour laws do not apply. In 2025, Russia issued 36,413 visas to North Koreans — about four times as many as in 2024 — and more than 98 per cent were student visas.

How much money does North Korea make from overseas workers?

A Multinational Sanctions Monitoring Team estimated in September that there are between 35,600 and 101,280 North Korean overseas workers, who earned between $450 million and $800 million last year. The report says this income is channelled into the military-industrial complex that sustains North Korea’s ballistic missile programme. Workers in Russia reportedly hand over up to 90 per cent of their earnings to the authorities.

What conditions do the workers face?

The report says advertisements promise employers 12-hour working days with only two days off a month, while in practice workers labour for up to 18 hours a day, six to seven days a week. Their movement is restricted, and they are kept on the job through coercion and threats of retribution against them and their families. One advertisement assured employers the workers would not “run away”.

Has anyone been punished over the scheme?

The businessman named as running the network, Vladimir Sokolov, was sanctioned by the European Union on 12 October 2026, with his assets frozen, for promoting industrial cooperation projects with North Korea. The network’s operations director, Ruslan Zhukov, denies any connection to Sokolov’s Black Horse network and insists the North Koreans are students, not workers. Russia’s foreign ministry and the North Korean embassy in Moscow did not respond to requests for comment.

Is this the first time North Koreans have worked abroad?

No. North Korean labourers have worked in Russia’s far east for years, and many North Koreans staffing restaurants in China have sent wages home to the state. What the new report describes is a larger, more organised version of that trade — run through a website, priced per worker, and operating at a scale reflected in the sharp rise in student visas issued in 2025.

Conclusion

The Global Rights Compliance report does not describe a hidden smuggling route. It describes a business: a website, a price list, a minimum order, and a sales pitch. Workers are brought to Russia as students, put to work in factories — including one making rations for the military — and kept there by threats against their families, while almost all of their pay flows back to Pyongyang.

That openness is what makes the findings so striking. The scheme operates in breach of UN sanctions that Russia itself voted for, and it serves both sides of the Moscow–Pyongyang partnership: North Korea gets hard currency for its weapons programme, and Russia gets workers for its war economy. The European Union has already sanctioned the man named as running the network. Whether anyone else acts — and whether the workers at the centre of the story get any protection — is the test that now follows.

This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.

Sources

• https://wncy.com/2026/10/28/moscow-pyongyang-back-network-sending-workers-to-russian-factories-report-says/ (Reuters, 29 October 2026)
• https://geographical.co.uk/news/north-korean-workers-are-on-sale-to-russian-companies-in-forced-labour-programme-report-reveals (Geographical, 30 October 2026)
• https://www.ajupress.com/view/20261029105270936 (Aju Press, 29 October 2026)