You probably heard about a recent revelation brought to us by the New York Times, about the US Navy Seal team’s bungled mission in 2019 to try to plant a listening device on north Korean soil. You know, the one where they got spotted by a boat full of Korean fisherman and immediately opened fire, slaughtering them all, then punctured their lungs with knives so they could dispose of their bodies at sea?

This article isn’t about that. It is, though, about another US intelligence-backed mission that also happened in 2019 and also resulted in a physical attack on Koreans. Weird, huh? It’s almost like America is constantly terrorizing Koreans. Like, for the last 75 years. Continuously. Anyways, let’s get to it.

See the man with the blurred face in the video above? That’s Charles Ryu. You may have seen his videos on various social media platforms. He does ‘man-on-the-street’ content where he holds a sign that says ‘Ask an North Korean’ and boasts to random people in America about his fantastical, perhaps invented story of escaping from the DPRK (‘north Korea’), twice.

I have no idea why Charles (or one of his compatriots) uploaded this video to Youtube, face blurred or not, because it is evidence of his participation in a terror attack on the DPRK embassy in Madrid, Spain. He is illegally trespassing in that video, actively breaking the law. Perhaps shortly before appearing in this video, Charles was potentially helping to take the occupants of the embassy hostage. We’ll get to that, though. First we need to step back a bit.

One part of Charles’ story is almost certainly true. He was born in the DPRK, and he did leave his homeland as a teenager, eventually making his way to America. I don’t particularly care whether or not he escaped twice or if it happened in the way he described, as that isn’t the point of this article. By the end of it you should be able to decide for yourself whether or not you believe it.

An important thing to note about ‘defectors’ from the DPRK, is that stepping out of a communist nation into late-stage capitalism is a bit of a shock, as even Charles will tell you. To adapt to life under capitalism, Charles needed money. So Charles did what many defectors do, and started working for an organization that uses defectors like him to spread propaganda about the DPRK.

Charles chose Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), which is a popular choice for those that end up in America. As a quick example of the type of false propaganda that LiNK spreads about America’s enemy, look no further than their page titled ‘The North Korean People’s Challenges’. Here’s an excerpt:

Even small acts of expression are forbidden. The regime attempts to dictate what kind of hairstyles and clothing is appropriate for North Korean people. North Koreans who push the fashion boundaries, like by wearing blue jeans, risk being stopped on the street and having their clothes cut up so they’re unwearable.

Just in this short article, they cite blatantly, provably false propaganda straight from the US State Department, like the absurd notion that the DPRK state controls which style of haircut their people are allowed to sport. LiNK, ahem, links to an article from The Telegraph to ‘prove’ this claim, which itself is directly citing Radio Free Asia, American state media which was originally started by the CIA during the Cold War to spread propaganda about America’s communist enemies.

LiNK also directly cites the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), which is a Washington, DC-based (of course) think tank with a bunch of American politicians and even an actual CIA agent on their board of directors. They also cite an absurd report about public executions from the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), which is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which is a regime change think tank that both founders admitted is a CIA cutout.

LiNK’s About Us page makes their goal clear:

Our Mission

Working alongside the North Korean people to accelerate change.

The ‘change’ they’re referring to is regime change. They want America to finish colonizing the Korean peninsula. They don’t only want the south to be a puppet state of the most imperialist regime to ever exist, they also want the north to be converted into a dystopic capitalist hellscape like their southern neighbors.

The result of being colonized by America

Organizations like LiNK that work to fulfill the goals of the State Department use defectors who have been processed through western intelligence to spread propaganda about America’s ideological enemy, the DPRK. The defectors are paid quite well for this, which is why they are willing to lie about their homeland. Because they have to, or else they won’t be able to afford to live. Watch ‘Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul’ to hear it from the horse’s mouth:

Charles Ryu is a victim of western intelligence. As soon as he left his country for good and worked with the UN to resettle in America, the lying and the gaslighting began. Charles at the time was a young, impressionable teenager, and therefore much moreso susceptible to the billion dollar US propaganda industry. He was taken advantage of by many bad actors, the most dangerous of which being Adrian Hong Chang, who the Financial Times describes as “a well-known North Korean human rights activist whose associates say has links to US intelligence agencies”.

Charles met Adrian while working for LiNK, which Adrian was a cofounder of. But Adrian was upset with LiNK’s lack of praxis, so to say. He wanted to get his hands dirty, so he joined a much more militant group called Free Joseon, and roped Charles into it as well. In early 2019 Free Joseon was putting out calls via their website to recruit activists who wanted to ‘liberate’ north Korea.

On February 22nd, 2019, they made a move. Adrian Hong Chang, Charles Ryu, and a handful of other ‘activists’ including Christopher Ahn, a former US Marine who terrorized Iraqis in the early 2000s, arrived at the DPRK embassy in Madrid armed with “crowbars, fake pistols, combat knives, balaclavas, a 3.8-meter telescopic ladder and rolls of tape”.

Adrian had already established a fake identity as a business man looking to invest in the DPRK, and he used it to gain access to the inside of the embassy. Once the group was inside, they ditched the deception approach and turned to violence, or more accurately, terrorism. They immediately began a brutal assault on the occupants of the embassy, beating them with their weapons, and taking them hostage by binding their hands and feet and forcing bags over their heads.

The victims of this extreme violence were rightfully afraid for their lives. A woman on the upper floor of the embassy who heard the assault happening below resorted to jumping out of the second story window, injuring herself in the process just so she could escape the terror. She notified the authorities of the attack.

The members of Free Joseon claim, to this day, that they were there to help someone defect. But the available facts go against this. According to the Spanish court report, the terrorists dragged an embassy resident down to the basement and told him they were there to ‘help’ him defect. He refused. He was not interested in defecting.

Spanish authorities arrived at the embassy while the invaders were still inside. They knocked on the door. Adrian Hong Chang opened it, and managed to convince the officers that nothing untoward was happening inside and that the terrified woman who jumped out of a window must be lying. The officers believed him, and left him and his cronies to continue terrorizing the occupants of the embassy.

As mentioned earlier, at some point while the poor souls in the embassy were bound and blindfolded, afraid for their lives, Charles Ryu had someone record him in that fateful video. They claim he was ‘returning to his homeland’, which is technically true, as the DPRK embassy, as with all embassies, is considered part of the DPRK itself.

It’s unclear if the motives of the Free Joseon terrorists were simply to kidnap that man and force him to defect, or to get a video op for Charles. Based on the available facts, we can assume it was neither of those things, and they were used as a cover, since the Free Joseon terrorists also took the opportunity to gather as much intel as they could while they had their hostages restrained. They snatched hard drives, flash drives, whatever documents they could get their hands on, and eventually made a great escape by stealing three official embassy vehicles and speeding off. The stolen intel was handed straight to the FBI.

As El Pais, Spanish media quoted:

Investigators from the General Information Office (CGI) and CNI ruled out the idea that the attack was the work of common criminals. The operation was perfectly planned as if it were carried out by a “military cell,” said sources close to the investigation. The assailants knew what they were looking for, taking only computers and mobile phones.

It is suspected that the attack was done specifically to gain intel on Kim Hyok Chol, the former North Korean ambassador to Spain.

One thing is unclear, and not specifically noted by any available sources, and that is Charles Ryu’s specific involvement in the attack. We know he was there, we know he was recorded on video in the courtyard, but we don’t know if he directly participated in the violence or ‘interrogation’ of the hostages. Either way, his participation in any capacity is an egregious crime, one which would likely land him behind bars for the rest of his life.

So why is he free? Why is he able to take to the streets in America to spread propaganda about his homeland? Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? If this terror attack was done at the direction of the state department, that means they are fine with what Charles did. They sent him to do it. That’s why he was given safe passage to America. That’s why he walks free.

It’s also why he does what he does on social media, though. Allow me to speculate, to give an educated guess, based on the available facts, of what is going on here. The US government could have let Charles get arrested by Spanish authorities and rot in a Spanish prison, or they could grant him asylum in exchange for using his identity as a former north Korean to spread genocidal propaganda about America’s enemy.

We’ve seen it time and time again. It’s also why Liberty in North Korea exists. They pay or coerce ‘defectors’ to lie about the DPRK, so that America can continue to manufacture consent against their enemy, to justify their imperialist sanctions regime, a part of their overarching sanctions campaign against the global south which kills half a million civilians per year.

Is that enough for you? Need further proof? Let’s look at some specific claims that Charles makes in his social media content post-terror attack.

On Charles’ Tiktok, where he currently has 300k followers, he posted a video on August 5th, 2025 which has 4.5 million views. In this video he repeats the absurd claim that people in the DPRK who do not save portraits of the Kims in a house fire will get punished. Charles is repeating blatantly false propaganda straight from the Daily NK, which was started by a grant from the NED, a CIA cutout, and admits in their media kit that without yearly funding from the NED they could not exist. Daily NK’s source is anonymous, just like Radio Free Asia.

On Charles’ Instagram account, where he currently has 172k followers, he posted a reel on March 8th, 2025 which has 3.8 million views. In this clip he makes the ridiculous claim that possessing a bible in the DPRK will get you and three generations of your family sent to a prison camp. This ridiculous claim comes straight from the US State Department, a 2023 report from the Office of International Religious Freedom.

On Charles’ Youtube channel, where he currently has 146k subscribers, his most popular video was posted on July 24th, 2025 and has 1.1 million views. At 1:58, he says, “But now Kim Jong-un came up with new law that if you were to watch not just South Korean drama, but if you were to listen to South Korean music or South Korean radio, it is punishable by death.” Charles is referring to another bit of propaganda straight from the Daily NK.

These are three small snippets of his content, and by no means an exhaustive account of all of the egregious state department propaganda that Charles spreads. Whether he wants to or not, it’s clear that Charles must post State Department propaganda about his homeland or he will face punishment for participating in a terror attack. Absolutely nothing this propagandist says should be taken at face value. He should not have the platform that he has on social media. He should face punishment and make amends for his role in terrorizing the occupants of the DPRK Embassy in Spain.

To close out this article, I have a request of you, dear reader. Go to your major social media platform of choice, find Charles there, and ask him why he’s wanted by Spanish authorities. See how quickly he blocks you.

Then, come back here and subscribe to me:

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