996: Christopher Ahn | A Marine in Kim Jong-un’s Crosshairs Part One

996: Christopher Ahn | A Marine in Kim Jong-un's Crosshairs Part One

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[00:00:00] Jordan Harbinger: Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger

[00:00:02] Christopher Ahn: show. I'm not some Navy Seal guy, but I've seen some movies, right? So I start walking around the airport, making sure I know where kind of the exits are and where some safe places could be. When we arrived, I looked him in the eye and I said, Hey man, I got you.

[00:00:23] Jordan Harbinger: Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger Show. We decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, and performers.

Even the occasional arms dealer, Russian spy, hostage negotiator, or tech luminary. And if you're new to the show or you wanna tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on persuasion and negotiation, psychology, geopolitics, disinformation, cyber warfare, crime, and cults and more.

That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit Jordan harbinger.com/start or search for us in your Spotify app. To get started today, Christopher on this is quite a story, so he ended up, and I will keep it short 'cause you'll wanna hear it from him, ended up breaking into an embassy.

I. A North Korean embassy no less in Spain to try and help rescue people who wanted to defect and everything went wrong, to say the least. Now he's facing extradition to Spain potentially to be murdered by North Korean agents who want him dead. This is a hell of a ride. So strap yourselves in here. We're cage in places because this is an ongoing case.

He could be extradited. He could be again, potentially be killed by agents of North Korea, or he could simply go to prison for years and years in Spain. It is really a wild ride. It's an incredible story. I co-hosted this one with Gabriel Mizrahi as well. An incredible story that had us riveted to our seats.

Alright, here we go with Christopher on. Okay. When did this all start? Your parents were from Korea, but did you grow up there at all or just here in the us?

[00:02:08] Christopher Ahn: If I have to look back and pinpoint a moment where this whole thing of where I am started, I think it would have to be when I was 17 years old. So when I was 17, I grew up here in Los Angeles.

And my father was in the Air Force after he came to the United States as an immigrant. He graduated from Los Angeles High School and he joined the military and after the military he got a job and all this kind of stuff and got married and after a while he started his own business and in Los Angeles and you know, had kids and I was the first born and whatnot, and things were going pretty hunky the 1992 riots.

It decimated our business along with hundreds of other Korean immigrant business owners, as well as other people here in Los Angeles as well. But the largest brunt of the LA riots was felt. The destruction was felt by Korean Americans, and my dad needed to come up with what is he gonna do? He's got a family to feed.

We didn't have the language back then, but he started a startup and he did what all startups do. They cash out what they got. We sold our home and he put all of his money into this new business. And a couple years into it, it was starting to build a little momentum. And I was in high school and I would help out on the weekends and during the summer and whatnot, I would go to his office and help out.

And this was a pants company, a slacks company. I would answer phones and do the thing just being a kid. And when I was 17, my father was diagnosed with cancer. Four days later, he passed away. It was more like a car accident than it was like a long drawn out, making sure your affairs are in order and whatnot.

So he went from being around the house to gone, and at the time we had no money because all of the money was invested in the startup that my father started. And my mother didn't speak English very well. We lived with my grandmother. I have a younger brother. And the last thing my dad told me was, you gotta be the man of the house now.

That's where all this started. We were in a situation where our family was desperate. We didn't know what to do. My mom and my family were looking at me to provide them guidance, and I'm just a 17-year-old kid. I hang out with stoners and skaters and doing my thing in high school, but now I've gotta take care of my family.

And I remember even today, I can distinctly remember feeling the desperation and feeling lost and scared. Not knowing what to do and knowing that if I made the wrong move, our family would be out on the streets like my grandmother would be out on the streets. And long story short, it worked out right?

Like I was able to pretend that like my dad was gone for a while, pick up the phone and be like, Hey, you remember me? Like I helped out my dad on the weekend. Like my dad told me that he really wanted me to make sure that you were taken care of. But I'm just a dumb kid and I don't remember what I was supposed to help you with.

Can you remind me what I was supposed to do for you? And through figuring it out, I was able to get by and bring the merchandise and then give it out and ship it out all over the country and send it to our salesman and on the warehouses and, and our customers and all that. But I got through by the skin of my teeth and I knew that right.

I was mature enough to know that I was told immature to be dealing with this. I needed to figure out how am I gonna continue doing this when I already know that I'm completely ill-equipped to do this. And so a friend of mine, like who was a stoner and skater kind of guy, he was older than me and after he graduated the year after, and I was a senior in high school and he showed up and like this dude, he left as the sloppy guy.

And he shows up with the dress uniform looking super sharp. And I was like, how did you become this guy? What is the transformation that occurred? And he was saying, the Marines did this to me. It straightened me up. I realized Alex said, that's it. That's what I need to do. That's the quickest route that I can go from where I am today as like this dumb kid to being a man, to be able to have the confidence and the courage to be able to take on the responsibility of taking care of my family.

And so I enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve and like when I went to bootcamp, I'm still leading the business. And so after I went to boot. And like when guys were getting letters from their parents and their girlfriends and stuff, I would get fabric swatches sent to me and inventory lists. And my drill instructor, you know, they open up all your mail and they're like, what the hell?

[00:06:31] Jordan Harbinger: Your parents are weird, man. Yeah. My wife keep sending pants samples. Yeah, exactly. So

[00:06:35] Christopher Ahn: you're in

[00:06:36] Gabriel Mizrahi: the

[00:06:36] Christopher Ahn: Marines. Yeah. But you're still running the business. Yeah, so I would write like letters to my mom 'cause she would send me documents that were sent from our suppliers or whatever it is. Right. And I would read it.

And I would write the response to it and I would mail it back to my mom, and then we had our secretary type it up and then they would fax it to our suppliers and stuff. Wow. Back in the day when faxes were the thing, so like I'm in the Marine Corps, I'm running a business, my mom is saying like, you know, I may have failed you financially, but I'm not gonna fail you as a mother.

You're gonna have to go to college. So I'm going to college, I'm running this business, I'm in the Marine Corps, doing my once a month kind of thing, trying to juggle all these things. And then nine 11 happens. And the whole world gets thrown into a loop. But specifically for me, it was, all right, well now I'm in the Marines.

You kind of know what's gonna happen. Coming up. We started getting ready to go to war in Afghanistan and stuff, and around that time is where I said, look, I just graduated college. I think this is the right moment. I'm potentially gonna go to war, right? I can't be running a war and running a business out there.

And so we started looking around for a buyer. We were able to sell the business. I bought my mom a house, and I started focusing on. Going to war. Wow. And I actually wasn't on the list of those who were going to be deployed. I had moved from here in California to Texas and I had gotten word that my old unit was deploying.

And I, we just spent years and years preparing to go. And I knew the guys there, they were my brothers. And the idea that they would leave and I'm left behind, and when they come back that some of the homies never got to come back. Sure. That would tear me apart. So I left everything. I came back to the old unit and I said, Hey, I don't care if I'm just gonna be filling coffee for people.

Like I gotta go. Let me go with you guys. And so I went and that's what I was doing. Like all the jobs were taken. I'm a Ford observer by military training, but when I got to Iraq, my main duty there was to make a coffee for the officers there.

[00:08:34] Jordan Harbinger: Somewhat safer, I think.

[00:08:36] Christopher Ahn: Yeah. Yeah. I stomach the fact that I came all this way.

Just to make coffee, and so I would poke my head into all the various little kind of offices and desks that all the officers had, and I. I got a college degree, I can be doing more than just making coffee. And one thing led to another and they put me in the intelligence shop and by the time I left I became the deputy chief of intelligence for a battalion out there.

And that sounds like a big deal, I think, to the civilian, but I think other Marines will know that that's not that big of a deal, but it is what it is. Right? That coffee was so good. Yeah. I came back from Iraq and I had this experience where I was helping my family out when they were in a very desperate situation when I was in Iraq.

My day-to-Day job was to understand what had happened over the course of the last 24 hours and the last week, compile it and provide some context to it, and then provide that context to the Marines on the ground as well as the officers. And part of that was interacting with Iraqi Army and others in the area and.

You're seeing face to face, the desperation that they're facing. Whenever I talk about Iraq, I always try to make it clear that like I didn't choose to go to war or anything. I'm not trying to defend or go against the positions of what the war was about, but when I was there, I. I wanted to make sure that I had the most positive impact that I could for my fellow Marines, as well as the people that were there to help.

And they were also in a very desperate situation where they're just normal people too. They have kids, they're trying to send their kids to school. They want to have their kids a better life. And it was part of our collective responsibility to make sure that we can try to do our best to make that happen for them.

[00:10:12] Jordan Harbinger: How did you then go from war zone to deciding to get involved with a group like Fri? Just saying? Yeah.

[00:10:18] Christopher Ahn: Yeah, so I came back from Iraq and I'm happy to be home. I got a job, I'm working at the job and it's slowly starting to eat away at me and I'm not really understanding why. And now many years looking back at it, I know exactly what it was, which was when you're in the military, and especially someone like me where.

The reason you wake up in the morning and what it is you do after you wake up in the morning are very intertwined, right? Like why you do and what you do in the military is very clear. You're there 'cause you're serving your country. Or when I was in Iraq, I'm there to help these Iraqis and help the locals.

I'm there to help my fellow Marines. But when you get out, you're just earning a paycheck and it becomes like, why am I doing this? What's the purpose of any of this? There was this huge hold that I had that I just didn't understand that was there and there was just this urge and need to be able to do something more than just making a paycheck.

And I went and I found a, a veterans organization that I started working with and I started working with them and went out to Washington and was working with veterans and I felt super fulfilled. And then the financial crisis occurred and all the nonprofits lost all their money and I'm back to where I started financially support my.

And I wanna make sure that I'm doing something that feels like I'm making a difference. You want a

[00:11:40] Jordan Harbinger: sense of purpose?

[00:11:41] Christopher Ahn: Yeah. Of some kind. Yeah. I wanna make sure that I make it very clear that I am not a North Korea expert, right? Like I didn't start doing this stuff because I nerd out about North Korea things.

[00:11:53] Jordan Harbinger: You don't have to throw such disdain on nerding out about North Korea. No, that's

[00:11:56] Christopher Ahn: fine. Right? That's just not what motivated me to get involved with this kinds of stuff.

[00:12:00] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:01] Christopher Ahn: So like the things that I say, and it's going to be. Things that I've read myself and some of the things that I've experienced, but there are so many people you included that could be far more knowledgeable about what happens in North Korea.

And I was not motivated to help these people because that I had some kind of dream of the regime being overturned. If it happened, would I be happy about it? Absolutely. But I'm not that guy. I'm just a guy. So what did motivate you then? Yeah, I think that what motivates any of us to do anything, it was simply because when someone is desperate and they're reaching out to you, right?

It's not like a, a hypothetical, what would you do in this situation or whatever. Somebody called me on my phone and said, there are people who will die if you do not help. And you have the unique, circumstantial kind of experiences that will help us achieve the fact to help them avoid this faith. I approach this the same way that I do when I volunteer for Habitat for Humanity.

Or when I help out with the Boys and Girls Club, or when I go volunteer with helping out kids like in Linwood, which are underprivileged kids and stuff, the point of service in my life is a very central part of who I am.

[00:13:17] Jordan Harbinger: Sure.

[00:13:17] Christopher Ahn: And I had to learn that kind of the hard way as someone who was in the Marine Corps and went overseas and served and then came back.

And at the time, this is still an issue where the veterans are just kind of like, okay, thanks for doing your time. Good luck. And I was out there, uh, trying to figure out like what makes me whole, what can I do that makes me a living and at the same time makes me feel like I'm happy with what I am doing.

And during this time of where I'm trying to figure it out, I reached out to a mentor that I had, and it's a guy that I met in college who was a pretty prominent Korean American guy that was successful and was interested in some of the same things that I was when I was in college. And I reached out to him and I said, Hey man, like I'm in this situation where I'm trying to figure out what it is that I want to do.

And I'm not really sure where I want to go. What do you think? What do you suggest? And we had some conversations, but one of the things that he had suggested was meeting this guy and connecting with this guy that started Link Liberty in North Korea, the most like famous North Korean kind of underground railroad operation that was out there at the time.

And the guy who started that was a guy named Adrian Hong.

[00:14:21] Jordan Harbinger: And they primarily help people facilitate escapes from North Korea. Correct. Or help people who have escaped, get to South Korea, et cetera.

[00:14:29] Christopher Ahn: Correct. They have a very big awareness campaigns that they do, but especially back then there was a lot of activity of trying to help those who are in sexual slavery and other North Koreans that were in really bad situations be able to.

Escape that and Link was facilitating that and Adrian was very well known in the Korean American community because of him founding Link and the incredible work that they were doing. But he had recently left that group and he was out also looking for something to do and he had contacted my mentor and so he thought it would be like, Hey, you guys are in kind of similar situations.

Why don't you guys like hook up and meet each other? I thought, yeah, sure. A couple weeks later we met up and had a couple burritos and I asked him a lot of questions about like his experiences and he was asking me about mine, and we just realized that we're very different, but we were on a similar wavelength of if we want to do something, it's gotta be more than just being able to pay the bills.

And I'm not uniquely a guy that was focused on North Korea in my life, but. As a Korean American growing up in our household, my grandmother fled Seoul when they invaded. My mother was born five days after the invasion of Seoul, so like the Korean War and North Korea and the American sacrifice of 50,000 plus lives that lost their lives defending South Korea.

These are topics of conversations that we had growing up, right? Even though I'm not some kind of North Korea guy that like nerds out on this stuff all the time, like it's very present in my history and my life. And so the fact that there's this dude that's out there putting it out there trying to make a difference, like I respected that.

Like I didn't think I was gonna get involved with that, but I respected that. He told me he wasn't sure what was gonna happen in the future, but. We agreed to, like, Hey, let's stay in touch. If there's some way that I can help you in the future 'cause you think that I'm able to help you in some way, then sure, yeah, gimme a call and we will talk it out and I'll see what I can do.

And that's where we left it. And after a few years, we would check in once or twice a year and we just catch up and saying like, what you've been up to. And for me, I, I went to business school and I'm just doing like the yuppie thing, like just moving on with my life. And he went to. And was helping out the government there after the fall of Gaddafi.

And he was doing all this incredible like experiences. And so I was like, wow, that's fascinating. And we would talk and I would ask him like, what's the plan? What are you planning to do? And he would say, I don't know. This is what we're doing. And that's what it was for several years. And then I would say that like in the mid 2000 tens, he reached out to me asking about my opinion and my thoughts on this idea that he.

And the idea was that his experience working in Libya was that when you have a country that is built with a dictator on the top, what fuels that infrastructure is blood and fear, right? Because you have to have this culture of that. If you don't follow what the dictator or what his people say, then there are some very deadly consequences that will occur after.

And you need to feel that to make sure, remind people that's what happens. And those are the real threats, and that's what motivates people to stay in line. When you take away that leader and you drain that infrastructure of what's holding it together. It's very fragile and what we saw in Libya, Iraq, and other places that have their desperate eliminate or taken out that very fragile infrastructure crumbles.

And what Adrian told me that he personally witnessed when he was in Libya is that you had these amazing people from overseas that were Libyan, that wanted to create a better future for Libya, and they would come in and they're educated, they have the best intentions, but they don't know what's going on.

They need time to be able to figure out and acclimate to understand what are the biggest issues, what do we need to focus on? And there's millions of people outside waiting for someone to tell them what to do, right? And meanwhile, the government is basically stopped 'cause there's no one telling them what to do.

So there's all this pressure on the top guys that came from out of the country to fix everything and bring to them all these things that they were hoping for when the authoritarian was taken out of power. That takes time takes, and the country doesn't have time and the infrastructure crumbles. And when it crumbles, it creates that vacuum and then nefarious characters come in.

And we've seen that happen time and time again. So Adrian came to me with this theory. He said if we create basically this like encyclopedia, I can go to someone who runs a a water treatment plan. And I could say, Hey, look man, what's happening in North Korea is bad. Do you want to help them? Yeah. What am I gonna do?

I'm just some random water treatment engineer guy. What if I told you that if you can write like a white paper, it doesn't have to be super sophisticated or anything, but what are the top 10 things you need to make sure that it's there for this treatment plant to run properly? To find, to maintain, or if you want to improve it or to make sure that it can be a proper working, functioning water treatment plan.

If I asked you write, could you write that? And more likely they would be like, yeah, that's some basic stuff. 'cause one day what I'd like to do is gather all these white papers from all these random people. And if you're a kindergartner teacher, write a little white paper on what kids need to have in order to have a solid development.

[00:20:10] Jordan Harbinger: You are listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest Christopher on. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Dell and a MD Dell Technologies has just dropped the Cybersecurity Tapes, which is a new podcast series that dives into today's biggest cybersecurity challenges. And I know that sounds a little bit technical, but this is a really good format.

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Six minutes a day is all it takes, and many of the guests on our show subscribe and contribute to the course. So come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the course at Jordan harbinger.com/course. Now back to Christopher on. Are you setting up a parallel infrastructure or barrel of expertise so that if the North Korean regime falls, it's not like, oh crap, what do we do now?

Here's everything we need to unplug a country and plug it back in again.

[00:23:20] Christopher Ahn: It isn't even that formal. We're not advocating how that occurs. Or when it's gonna occur. But if it does, and we hope that it does, let's try to give whoever takes charge, 90 days, six months, like a year of just some time, so you can give them shovel-ready jobs that is put together by all these kind of regular, average, everyday folk.

Because we're not trying to make North Korea and their infrastructure the best in the world. We're not trying to make them modern and all this kind of stuff. We're just trying to make sure that the system keeps running. While the people who come in to take over have the time and the room to learn, to acclimate, to understand what needs to happen.

In the meantime, the people need to be doing something. So if you drain the infrastructure of blood and fear, how about we fill it up with jobs and cash and money and give them things, go work on the roads, go work on water treatment, chemicals. Concrete factories education in order to give these people the time so that the country can get on their feet.

And it was also, you talk to the average Korean American, who knows the way that I do, the way that you know about what's happening there, and you say, do you want to help? More than likely they're gonna say, yes, I would like to help. But trying to help something like North Korea, which is this huge issue.

What is random people like everyday individuals going to be able to do to help that situation? And the opportunity and the kind of think tank that Adrian had created called the Chosen Institute was to collect regular, average everyday people and say that you have a very specific special understanding and skill.

Can you write something that we can compile and collect together and we can give this encyclopedia to whoever may need it in the future.

[00:25:12] Jordan Harbinger: How do you go from knowledge base to direct action?

[00:25:16] Christopher Ahn: Yes, good question. When Adrian asked me that and told me about that, I thought, man, that's a fantastic idea. What a way to activate people, to make them feel like they can make a difference with what it is that they can do and what it is that they know.

So I was like, yeah, man, go do them. I approve and he, what can you write? And. I don't know how many pants do you need? Exactly right. Like at the time I was running like an e-commerce consulting kind of a thing, so I'm like, I don't think the North Koreans really need to figure out how the best way to market online shopping is.

[00:25:47] Jordan Harbinger: What we need is Shopify. Yeah, exactly. That's what we need

[00:25:50] Christopher Ahn: here. I'll give you a discount code. Right. Yeah, like, like it's not something that I felt that I could easily compel myself to like get in there and do something, and he was like, why don't you write something military oriented? I said, I am not the military guy, man.

There are a lot of people that know this stuff a lot better than I do. I just did my time. I did what I can serve my country. And that was kind of it. But I said, look, I cheer you on, man, and if there's anything that I can do maybe to help in the future, let me know. And after a while he would call to these meetings where he gathered all these people from all around the world.

I would see people from Europe, from South America. There weren't all Korean descent either. They were all there because they thought that this was a fantastic idea of utilizing everyday people to come together and create something that could one day make a difference. Now when Adrian was going around Europe, like trying to recruit some of these people, if Adrian's walking around and talking about North Korea to all these random people, the North Koreans are gonna find out.

Right? And they started to approach him and have conversations with him. You mean like intelligence services? Yeah. Yeah. What are you doing? What are you trying to do? And the conversation with Adrian told me was that he would have these conversations with these diplomats and these important people. And they were very skeptical of what he was trying to do.

Are you trying to overturn the regime and all this kinds of stuff. And he was honestly telling them like, yeah, it would be great if that occurred, but that's not gonna happen tomorrow and I'm not gonna be the guy that's gonna create this. What I'm trying to do is that when and if that occurs that you and your family have a chance to have a better life in North Korea.

That's what it is that we're trying to do here. After multiple conversations over years, I think it was the North Koreans started to create a rapport with Adrian, realizing he was genuine in what he was trying

[00:27:35] Gabriel Mizrahi: to do. Sorry, I just have to clarify. On what level do North Korean officials develop rapport with somebody who's saying?

Yeah, I'm pretty pro the idea of taking down this regime and you could have it better.

[00:27:47] Jordan Harbinger: Well, it wasn't necessarily taking down cheering. The downfall of the regime typically doesn't go over well with those folks, does it?

[00:27:54] Christopher Ahn: No. No. And so the The answer is that is, what a great question. I have no idea. Right. I wasn't there to have these conversations.

These are just things that when I would meet up with Adrian, have conversations, he would tell me. And it sounds like you responded to this video. Yeah. I was like, wow, that's crazy. That's what I would say. And so that's the situation of where it was in 2017. He's going around recruiting these people. These North Koreans are skeptical, but he's starting to make connections and he's starting to build rapport where he can, but people are at arms distance kind of a thing.

I think he's probably on the radar and all this kind of stuff. Sure, sure. And that's the situation. It was in 2017 and then Thena assassination occurred. Right. And that was an inflection point.

[00:28:37] Jordan Harbinger: For people who don't know what we're talking about, this is the brother of Kim Jong-Un as leader of North Korea.

He's murdered in an airport. I think we've talked about this on the show before. Bradley Hope, episode eight 20. He gets murdered in an airport by two women. Who rub chemicals on his face turns out to be, was it sarin or vx? Yes. vx. Yeah. And he dies this horrible death that is worthy of a bond villain, essentially.

It's really crazy. And it once again puts North Korea on the world stage in a typical North Korean way, which is negative, but turned up to 11.

[00:29:08] Christopher Ahn: Yeah. And one of the things that we have to remember is that they chose to assassinate him in this way in a very public way. Right? Right. They could have done it in like some alley and.

Stabbed him a few times, let him bleed out or whatever. Like they didn't decide to do that. They didn't want to do it quietly. They wanted the world to know that this, yeah, it's on video. Yeah.

[00:29:26] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:29:27] Christopher Ahn: Right. Yeah. This is what happens. Right? So that's the kind of country that we're talking about here, right?

Whatever it is that they do, when they do this stuff, they want to make sure that they're not only doing this for the world stage. They're doing it for everyone inside North Korea. Yeah. And the diplomats around the world as well.

[00:29:43] Jordan Harbinger: It's branding and domestic consumption. Propaganda for the whole country.

Absolutely. Okay, so this catapults everything from knowledge base to Wait a minute, does it turn the urgency up?

[00:29:53] Christopher Ahn: Yeah. So what happens is in Adrian's kind of travels around Europe, he meets with.

One of the things that people have to realize is that kind of saying the obvious here, but North Korea is not a normal country and the way that they operate is far closer to Game of Thrones than it is modern day government. And so it's all down through lineage, right? So there's the God leader sung, and then his son who takes power after that.

And then what's supposed to happen after that is his eldest son is supposed to take over. The current guy in power right now, Kim Jong-Un is the son of a concubine. So he's the bastard son, right? And because the North Koreans deemed Kim Jong to Western, not reliable, they decide that the better choice is to go with Kim Jong and for Kim Jong-Un, that means anyone that's tied to King Jam is a threat, right?

And so you see him assassinate his brother. You see him assassinate his uncle who was partial to his brother, and reports are that there are like infighting in North Korea where divisions of military guys were killed because of people trying to vie for power, right? I don't know. I'm not a North Korea guy, so these are just things that I've read as well.

But that's the situation, right, where this guy is trying to make sure that he has his iron grip on power and he's going to eliminate any threat that he. In February, after probably months and months of planning and years of waiting for the right moment, they go out and execute him in a very public way.

While that was happening, his son Kimon soul immediately after gets a phone call from someone in North Korea saying, Hey, I don't know if you know this, but your father's been assassinated, and you need to get the hell out of Dodge because they're coming for you as well.

[00:31:52] Jordan Harbinger: He's next in line. Exactly right.

He's the eldest son of the other guy in line for the throne. It really is like Game of Thrones. Yeah. Like yeah, you got this sort of John Snow character. Yeah. And kind of a bad guy, but Yeah. But the complete opposite in every other way. And then this kid, right? Isn't he just in public school? Private school in Bosnia or something like that?

Yeah.

[00:32:11] Christopher Ahn: Like he went to school in like Europe somewhere and he gave some interviews to an international media company talking about how he hopes North Korea becomes a better place and all this. Those are direct contradictions from what North Korea's saying. North Korea's saying we're amazing, right? And he's going around saying, no, not actually.

Right? And so he's a threat and he gets a phone call saying like, they're coming for you. And he looks out the window and he has security with him 24 7. And they're all gone.

[00:32:40] Jordan Harbinger: Wait a minute, this kid has security with him 24 7, and they just vanished. Well, his family does

[00:32:44] Christopher Ahn: and they vanished.

[00:32:45] Jordan Harbinger: What?

[00:32:46] Christopher Ahn: Yeah. Try to put yourself in this kid's situation here.

I cannot relate with the Prince of North Korea or whatever it is that you want to call him, but I can relate with a guy who recently lost his father. His family is looking at him to basically lead them to safety and he doesn't have anyone to turn to. Because this kid looks out the window, his whole security detail is gone.

The country where he comes from wants to murder him. What do you do? Is he supposed to go to the Americans and just be like, Hey, can you help me? I don't even think that would even ever cross his mind, right? Because you are North Korea. That is your mortal enemy. So he picks up the phone and he calls Adrian and he says, Hey, Adrian, murdered my dad.

They're coming for me. I don't know what to do, what should I do? And so Adrian starts going like, okay, well we need to get you out of where you are, Macau, into somewhere safe, and let me call around to figure out who we can help to facilitate that. And then I'll let you know. And by then. He had already made all these connections with all these people for the think tank that he created.

There were lawyers there, there are government officials there from in Europe. There are random guys that are like kindergartner, teachers and water treatment plants, but he has this network. But none of them are military guys. They're just random, normal people or kind of government ish kind of people or lawyer ish people.

[00:34:18] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah,

[00:34:18] Christopher Ahn: right. We

[00:34:19] Jordan Harbinger: get

[00:34:19] Christopher Ahn: it,

[00:34:19] Jordan Harbinger: man. We're a bunch of nerds. Like we're the Navy Seals. Yeah, we're the spies.

[00:34:23] Christopher Ahn: Right. And he calls me trying to see like if we can talk and we can brainstorm together about what might be able to do. So he calls me and he says, Hey man, do you know what happened with Kingdom na? I'm like, yeah, of course.

He says, where are you right now? And I was in Manila at the time just to hop, skip away because I had recently sold my company and I had a little bit of time and what better time than then just to do a little traveling. Yeah. And I had like my, one of my best friends was Filipino. He was gonna go back and visit his family.

He's like, come on with, I was like, yeah, that sounds awesome. You're munching

[00:34:59] Jordan Harbinger: on une. Yeah. And he's, do you wanna hide an internationally? Yeah, possibly endangered hunted man with North Koreas chasing him. And you're like, let me finish my lunch.

[00:35:10] Christopher Ahn: When that a call happened, it was like nine thirty, ten ish at night.

I was on a rooftop bar at a hostel. It's like a nice hostel. It's one of my friend's kind of place, and I'm like five beers deep in, you know what I mean? And I'm hanging out with all these people that are traveling from all around the world. Sure. Having a good ass time. And I get this call and he's like, where are you?

And I'm like, I'm in Manila. And so he's like, oh crap. Okay. You think that you can go to Taiwan and meet the family there? Keep them safe while I start reaching out to other people in the network to try to figure out where he can go, who he can talk to, and where we can arrange something so that he can find asylum somewhere.

And I said, what is it that exactly that I'm supposed to do? What is it that you want me to do? And he said, what the plan is that we want him to fly into Taiwan's International Airport. You meet him at the airport and just keep him calm and keep him safe. And I thought about it and I thought to myself, yeah, this is a, a weird situation.

His dad just got murdered in an airport. Take him to this other airport. Right, right. Exactly right. Yeah. But then at the same time, if you just think about it, anyone who's ever gone to an airport right when the murder happened, didn't happen inside the secured area. That happened near the front door of when you walk into the airport, and what they were asking me to do is go past several security checkpoints, right, and go into a secure location.

He is also gonna go through several checkpoints and fly into that airport so that anyone in that airport would have to go through several security checks. Right. They've

[00:36:45] Jordan Harbinger: been identified. They don't have a weapon on them. That's obvious. Right. Trying to get away after attacking somebody is nearly impossible.

Exactly. So you just figure it's a safer location.

[00:36:53] Christopher Ahn: Well, again, I'm not gonna say that it's

[00:36:54] Jordan Harbinger: safe. Yeah. You're talking about nation state, so nothing is really safe. Yeah.

[00:36:58] Christopher Ahn: But we're talking about where this kid's life is on the line. I'm being asked to help this kid out. The risk that's involved, you have to understand it and see it from a sliding scale.

I asked Adrian well, like, who else might be able to do this? And he is like, well, we have no idea when they're gonna come after him. You are theoretically three hours away from him. You're the closest guy. Do you think that you might be able to go to that airport and just hang out with the family while we're able to try to figure out what to do?

And I said, yeah, sure. I mean, if I'm the last guy and this guy has nowhere else to turn. You're asking me to go into a secure location to put my hand on a shoulder and saying like, Hey man, I got you. I can do that. And my job at the consulting company that I had recently sold my job there was to the scenario in which I would get these jobs, was that a company would get some services from a big firm or whatever and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars or whatever, and.

Six months down the line, they're behind schedule. They're not meeting their numbers. The executives are freaking out. They're gonna meet with their board members. Everyone's super stressed and that's when they call, like my company. And my job at the company was to simply sit with the executive and say like, Hey, what are your fears right now?

[00:38:16] Jordan Harbinger: This is the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest Christopher on. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by a G one. I've made a G one a part of my morning routine for quite a while now, over a decade. This product I am thoroughly in, all in on, on on the greens. This product is rigorously tested to ensure quality going way beyond the norm for most supplements.

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Jordan harbinger.com/ai. Thank you for supporting those who support the show. Now for the rest of part one with Christopher on. You're a professional calmer downer.

[00:40:51] Christopher Ahn: Yeah, that's, that's what it is that I did as a job, where I would go through like his fears, his risks, and we would sit down and create plans to make sure that we mitigate all of those risks.

And most of the time, I'm not the experts who's creating those solutions either. All I am is I'm the conduit to make that guy on the other side of the table feel like someone understands him, someone understands his urgency and his fear and what's on the line, and someone. Equally effort tried to prevent those bad things from happening and make the good things happen.

That was my job. So when Adrian asked me, can you go and sit with this family and make them feel comfortable, safe while we try to work this out? I was like, yeah, I, I guess I could do that. That's what I do. Yeah. I'm the

[00:41:35] Jordan Harbinger: delay whisperer. I got this

[00:41:37] Christopher Ahn: look at, at the end of the day when Adrian created this chosen institute and was asking everyday individuals.

What is it that you do on a daily basis? You can provide material help in the future that might be able to help these people's lives. And he was basically asking me the same thing at that moment. Like every day what you do is you sit down and you make people feel calm and you make people feel recognized and seen.

And that's what I. That's what he was asking me to do. And so I said, okay. I got on a plane. I got to the Taiwan airport, and I'm not some Navy Seal guy, but I've seen some movies, right? So I start walking around the airport, making sure I know where kind of the exits are and where some safe places could be.

When we arrived, I looked him in the eye and I said, Hey, man. I got you.

[00:42:31] Jordan Harbinger: He knew you were coming, right? 'cause if he sees a Korean guy, it could go either way at that point. Yeah. I was supposed to

[00:42:35] Christopher Ahn: go by the name Steve, and I saw him coming off the plane and I told him that I'd be wearing a Dodger's hat. And he saw me and, and he looks at me and he goes, Steve, I go, yeah, that's me.

And I said, I looked at him and I said, Hey man, I got you. I went up to his mother and I said, in Korean, I understand how scary this is. I'm here to help you. And I took him to his place and where eventually ended up an executive lounge area where they have little hotel rooms and Sal and I and his family stayed there for a couple days trying to figure out

[00:43:07] Jordan Harbinger: in the airport, in the airport

[00:43:09] Christopher Ahn: trying to figure out how and where to go.

And that's the inflection point of when things started to

situation. You said like why would, uh, these guys, the hun soul and his family go with these knuckleheads to Amsterdam? And the goal of the group wasn't to necessarily end up in Amsterdam. It was to get to a place where he's safe so that they can figure out what the future was going to be. You're not gonna get that from a headline, and you're not gonna get that from some random kind of going across story.

So I totally understand why someone would think. That this was like kind of knucklehead kind of thing. And I'm more than willing to stand up to public judgment on whether people approve of doing

[00:43:51] Jordan Harbinger: something like that. I think most people approve. I think the knucklehead part is there was no better plan in place, no offense, but like they were grasping its straws.

Yeah. Colin in some dude who was five beers deep in a manila youth hostel. Exactly. To go and and handle this. Exactly. And I think we talked about this on Bradley's show as well, but. He never made it to Amsterdam.

[00:44:13] Christopher Ahn: Yeah, he never made it to Amsterdam.

[00:44:14] Jordan Harbinger: What happened?

[00:44:15] Christopher Ahn: I have no idea. So when, when we were there in Taiwan, the CIA guy showed up and when they did, you know, I was relieved like the real guys are here.

Right? But at the same time, my job there was to make sure that the family was safe. I always told them, the family, I said, look, the CIA is here. They want to talk to you. You don't have to talk to them. If you don't want to talk to them, I'm here for you. I am not here to help them. I'm here to help you. And so I helped make them feel comfortable talking to the CIA guys.

And when they got on the plane together, they probably continued to have more conversations and then they decided to go where they wanted to go.

[00:44:55] Jordan Harbinger: Because the flight was booked to Amsterdam and then they just never got off the plane. Right. Is that kind of how it ended? Yeah. Yeah. This is like straight out of a movie, like, oh, we're all on the plane.

Okay. And then they're gone. And has anyone heard from him since then?

[00:45:06] Christopher Ahn: No. I remember speaking to Adrian one time and he told me that he got word that they're safe. That's pretty much that's, that's all I got. But again, like Amsterdam wasn't the final location. Right. It was a place where they know that there was a group of people willing to keep him safe there while they continue to work out where he would go next.

[00:45:25] Jordan Harbinger: And are these diplomats that are reaching out to the group.

[00:45:27] Christopher Ahn: So it's diplomats, scientists, people who are in positions of privilege that they're able to travel out, have recognized the situation that they're in and want to create a better life for their family, you know? And the way that it would normally work would be that they would reach out to the group and the group would work out how that would occur, and.

If they felt that they needed some extra help, like on the emotional coaching, then they would send me a message and I would say, okay, what's going on? And if they can, they would tell me, but most of the time they didn't. They would just say, we're doing something similar to what we did last time, and we would need your help.

Okay. I would show up to a designated place and I would meet the people who were there and I didn't know their name. We were going by. Pseudonyms, right. I think my name was Steve at one point, and there was a couple other names could come up with any code name you wanted. Yeah. You chose Steve. That's the thing, right?

Like I didn't wanna walk around being called snake eyes or something like that. I

[00:46:30] Jordan Harbinger: don't know, man. It's not as bad as Steve, but it's, yeah, I think that's the idea

[00:46:33] Gabriel Mizrahi: though. It's rather nondescript. That's, I know. I'm just kidding. Obviously someone's like, Hey, snake eyes, like I wouldn't like be what? Oh, that's me.

Like I wouldn't turn. Just to be clear, when you talk about emotional coaching, so you're in a way, the defector whisper a little bit. But help us understand like your job there was to help people get comfortable with the idea. Yes.

[00:46:51] Christopher Ahn: The thing is this is if they've shown the immense courage to reach out to this email address, which is a big deal.

It's a big deal knowing that the moment that they push send it could mean the death of them, their family, and their family at home. Right, right. We understand that. I understand that. So my job was that like if they're willing to do that. We are willing to go the extra mile to make sure that happens, that the risk that they took and the trust that they gave us, that we are there to help them go the rest of the way.

Because the hardest part is pushing that message to send. But the second hardest part is actually crossing that line. And when I would go and meet with these people, I would tell them in Korean, I say, look what you did. And what we're going to do is going to be the hardest thing and the most scariest thing in your life.

But I am me physically. I am the result of people who've made those similar decisions when my family came to the United States. And it's a totally different circumstance. I'm not trying to equate my situation with your situation, but you have to understand when my parents came, they didn't know what the future was going to be.

They just knew that their life circumstance at the current time was not something that they wanted to continue when they wanted to make a family and they were willing to take the risk to go to an unknown land where they've been told that there are opportunities and that there may be a better chance for them, they've decided to leave everything that they know behind to start this new life.

That's something that people who are born in the United States, I don't think that they understand and recognize enough that these immigrants, whether it be from Korea or from wherever else, these decisions that they're making are extremely scary and difficult to make. They're leaving behind their home, their family, their friends, everything that they know because they're trying to make it better for their children.

That's what I understand. And so when I sit with them and I say, look, you are making the most scariest decision much more than would be for an average person, but I am a result of those types of decisions. I have a nice job. I have a nice car. I have a nice place where I live. I have a family, and I live in relative comfort because my parents made these types of decisions.

And so when you get scared, remember why you are making this decision. And I am here. We are all here. We flew thousands of miles because we recognize how scary this is, and we wanna make sure that whatever you do moving forward, we are here to support you and we are there to make sure that you do not feel that you made this wrong choice or that you are alone.

'cause you are not alone. We are here with you and that's what we came to do.

[00:49:54] Jordan Harbinger: I can see why you're good at this. By the way. I'm pretty amped up for this podcast and I'm not even defecting. And I can see why you're, uh, extremely confidence inspiring in somebody who is making the scariest decision. Well, again, I'm

[00:50:04] Christopher Ahn: not the star here.

The people who made these decisions, they're the heroes. I'm just simply trying to support them in their heroic actions. A lot of times it would literally be me just sitting next to them. And if it was the wife or a child, it's me holding their hand or me putting my hand on the guy's back and saying, we are all physically here for you and to support you and you won't be alone.

And that was the standard. So when the organization would get these requests. They would work out with the person who's requesting the defection as well as what they had capabilities of. But at the end of the day, these are just a bunch of guys, the khaki wearing guys with normal day jobs who like were given the same situation where this person would like to escape.

You have certain skills where you know people or you this or that or whatever. Can you help? And you are in a unique position to help because you used to be Korean. You have relevant experience in doing what it is that we need to do. And you're not gonna ask for quid pro quo in any kind of way. Right?

Like, I'm not representing some type of interest where if I help you, you now have to help us, or something like that. It was nothing like that. It's just the fact that as a Korean American. Understanding the situation that they're in, experiencing and seeing other people experience desperation where they have nowhere else to turn for me and for others who were working with me, you put that in front of them.

And the common thing that we share, we come from all different places in the world, and the majority of us were Korean descent, but not all of us. But the one thing that we all did share. Is that when you are given this option and this choice of whether to help this person or whether not to, I'm not the type of person that can say no to that and then look at myself in the mirror, and that's ultimately what it comes down to.

[00:52:04] Jordan Harbinger: You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show with North Korean defector Yomi Park

[00:52:09] Clip: in North Korea. Birds and minds can hear your whisper. It's the only place that modernity hasn't touched. 90, 70% North Korean roads are not paved in the hospital. They use one needle to inject everybody.

It's very common to have a surgery without painkiller. The worst torture is being starved. And before you die from starvation, you halluc, you lose your mind. So some mothers eat their children because they thought their children were dogs. Because they go crazy and you don't eat, and then they wake up and they're like, what happened to my child?

If somebody challenging the party ideology, they don't just go after killing you or your son, your grandma, they really go after a generation like get rid of entire clan. That's how they prevent the revolution, and that's how they became like Almighty god. Every front newspaper in North Korea is a Kim's photo.

So sometimes you do not see the front page and you rip it. That's how you get executed.

[00:53:08] Jordan Harbinger: How do they prepare you to escape?

[00:53:09] Clip: Pray and fasting? You need a miracle to do it because you are gonna go across the Goby desert, into Mongolia from China in the minus four degrees. That's why they make you pray. They just give you a compass why you walk, follow the north and the west, and then cross eight wire fences and hopefully that's gonna Mongolia.

Very unique thing with North Korean scene. Whenever you ask them in their dream is always North Korea. You never escape in your subconscious. You are there forever. Every night. Every night, I'm there like nobody escapes in your dream.

[00:53:44] Jordan Harbinger: To hear more about the bizarre mind games that generations of North Koreans have had to endure under the current regime.

Check out episode 5 78 and 5 79 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. Alright, that's the end of part one, part two in a couple days. Stay tuned for that if it's not already out yet, by the way, for people who wanna help Christopher Un. There is a GoFundMe. We will link to that in the show notes. He's obviously cannot work.

He's lost a bunch of work time. He's really in a world of hurt. His lawyer is pro bono, but you know, he's gotta take care of his family. I mean, he's really hurting. So there's a GoFundMe if you feel compelled to help somebody in this situation. Again, linked in the show notes. Also, there's a website that we will link to in the show notes with the latest news on his case.

And, uh, hopefully, man, just hopefully he. Ends up getting some sort of special exception. All things Christopher on will be in the show notes@jordanharbinger.com, transcripts in the show notes, advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show, all at Jordan harbinger.com/deals. Please consider supporting those who support this show.

Also, our newsletter. Every week, the team and I dig into an older episode of the show and dissect the lessons from it. So if you are a fan of the show and it seems like you are and you wanna recap of important highlights and takeaways, or you just wanna know what to listen to next, the newsletter is a great place to do just that.

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I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. This show is created in association with Podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, mil Campo, Ian Baird and Gabriel Rahi. Remember, we've rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting.

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