Just five years ago, Mr. Kim (not his real name) was a member of a new social group in North Korea known as “tonju,” or “masters of money.”

This term describes the country’s new rich, whose fortunes now often reach six-digit figures, who actively invest in the fast-growing market sector of the economy and who are a driving force behind the minor consumption boom so noticeable in North Korean cities nowadays.

Some tonju began their rise to power in the late 1980s, but the majority constitute those who found ways to profit from the social and economic chaos of the 1990s.