FAKE PASSPORTS OF KIM JONG UN AND KIM JONG IL

(RAAP—031)

In the 1990s, North Korean leaders Kim Jong Un and his father, Kim Jong Il, utilized unauthorized Brazilian passports to apply for visas to Western countries. These fake passports indicated their desire to travel beyond North Korea and potentially use them as an escape route.

Four senior Western European security agencies confirmed the authenticity of these Brazilian passports, which featured photos of the two Kims under the names Josef Pwag and Ijong Tchoi. According to anonymous security sources, the passports may have been used for travel to Brazil, Japan, and Hong Kong.

The Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported in 2011 that Kim Jong Un had visited Tokyo as a child in 1991 using one of these Brazilian passports, which predated its official issue date. Both passports, issued on February 26, 1996, were stamped by the "Embassy of Brazil in Prague." Facial recognition technology confirmed that the photographs matched Kim Jong Un and his father.