South Korea’s Supreme Court has upheld a prison sentence for an activist convicted of violating the country’s National Security Act (NSA) by engaging in illegal contact with North Korean operatives abroad.

The case concerned four activists who prosecutors say met operatives from a cultural exchange bureau of Pyongyang’s Workers’ Party of Korea in China in May 2017, and again in Cambodia in April 2018.

Prosecutors also alleged that the group — called the North Chungcheong Comrade Party — received $20,000 (26 million won) from DPRK operatives, who hid the funds in a Walmart locker in Shenyang in Nov. 2019.

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