[EXCLUSIVE] There was another ranking North Korean defector from Kuwait before Ryu: source Posted : 2021-02-25 16:20 Updated : 2021-02-26 09:14 North Korea's former acting ambassador to Kuwait Ryu Hyun-woo has an interview with CNN in January. Captured from CNN By Yi Whan-woo A North Korean official ranking higher than the country's former Acting Ambassador to Kuwait Ryu Hyun-woo, whose defection to South Korea was recently made public, also fled from the same Gulf state in 2017 and defected to the South, according to a reliable source. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the source told The Korea Times that the "higher-placed" official was not a diplomat but was in charge of a construction project involving North Korean workers. They were eventually sent back home after Kuwait enforced the 2017 U.N. Security Council sanctions against the Kim Jong-un regime which was using "their" wage remittances to fund its nuclear and missile programs. The source also wondered why the government didn't reveal anything about the earlier defection.