North Korea has been known to use women as part of its clandestine operations, involving murder and blackmail.
The Star gave the example of the now-exiled Kim Hyun Hee, who in an interview with Australia’s ABC News in April 2013, revealed how, as a 25-year-old, she was groomed by the isolated regime’s spymasters to conduct the deadly bombing of Korean Air Flight 858, which killed 115 people in 1987.
The attack was reportedly planned to deter foreign teams from taking part in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.
She and her co-conspirator were captured in Bahrain, both of them biting down on cyanide pills to kill themselves rather than being captured.
She, however, survived and after her defection, now lives in a secret location in South Korea surrounded by bodyguards for fear of North Korean assassins.
Investigators are now probing if women assassins were also involved in the mysterious death of a North Korean whose passport bore the name Kim Chol, aged 46, with passport number 836410070, from Pyongyang.
Reports have indicated that Kim Chol, was in fact Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Jong Nam was reportedly living in exile in Macau and was returning there from Kuala Lumpur when he was suddenly taken ill at the airport.
The Star also reported that two fair-skinned women, both with shoulder-length hair, walked up to an unsuspecting Jong Nam, grabbed his face and splashed it with a lethal liquid that left him dead within hours.
One of the women was wearing a white top, a denim skirt and a blue backpack. The second woman was in a blue top and a pair of jeans. Both were believed to have features similar to those of Korean women.
After pulling off their daring act, they quickly walked out of the klia2 terminal and took a cab, The Star reported.
Selangor CID chief SAC Fadzil Ahmat told Bernama that the man was seen struggling for help and managed to obtain the assistance of a klia2 receptionist as his eyes suffered burns as a result of the liquid.
An ambulance was called for but the man died en route to the Putrajaya Hospital. Police are now waiting for the post-mortem results to determine the cause of death and are also looking for the alleged assailants who were believed to have escaped in a taxi.
The Star also reported that not all female agents employed by North Korea are used for violent purposes. It was revealed in 2014 by a former elite North Korean official that the country operated a “seed-bearing programme”.
In this scheme, according to a Telegraph report, high-level visitors to Pyongyang would be provided an attractive consort and months later, would be blackmailed by news of a child.
Leveraging on this blackmail, the North Korean government would demand favourable stories or even business opportunities by targeted journalists and businessmen.