It’s the early 2000s — you are a typical Korean man in your 40s, an ambitious entrepreneur who’s launched a business in the far-away country of Suriname in South America, hoping to reap success as the breadwinner of your family. However, your plans go up in flames when your business partner commits fraud, leaving you at a loss about what to do.

It seems like you’re at the darkest hour of your life, when you’re suddenly contacted by the National Intelligence Service (NIS). They want your help to catch your business partner — who astonishingly turns out to be a drug lord whose name is on Interpol’s most-wanted list.

Sounds familiar? It’s the loose summary of the first two episodes of Netflix Korea’s popular original series “Narco-Saints,” which revolves around an ordinary entrepreneur portrayed by Ha Jung-woo, who strikes a deal with secret agents to go undercover to capture a Korean drug lord, portrayed by Hwang Jung-min, who is active in Suriname under the guise of a pastor.

Many would be surprised to know the series is based on the real story of a drug lord named Cho Bong-haeng who operated a massive trafficking organization in Suriname between the late 1990s and early 2000s, and an ordinary entrepreneur who went undercover for the NIS to infiltrate the drug organization with the ultimate purpose of capturing Cho.

Cho was captured at Sao Paulo International Airport in July 2009, and was transferred back to Korea in 2011 where he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a fine of 100 million won. While Cho’s crimes were reported in detail by prosecutors and media, exactly how the drug lord was captured was shrouded in mystery.


Entrepreneur K

One of the main figures in Cho’s capture was later revealed to be the ordinary entrepreneur, only known to the public by his initial K. His background and his involvement in the NIS mission was revealed in October 2011 in an exclusive interview with the JoongAng Sunday, an affiliate of the Korea JoongAng Daily.

The Korea JoongAng Daily compared the article written by journalist Kang Kap-saeng and excerpts from the Netflix series’ by director Yoon Jong-bin and actor Ha, who had their own meeting with K, to compare the true story and the on screen adaptation.

Yoon wrote script based on evidence compiled by prosecutors and the NIS, including recordings of K during undercover operations.

“What I was most curious about K was this man’s motive behind dedicating three years of his life, away from his home and family, to work undercover for a spy agency,” Yoon said at a press interview at a cafe in Samcheong-dong, central Seoul, on Sept. 15, explaining that he interviewed K three times to get detailed information about his journey.

“My first impression of K was that he was like a soldier, a sergeant,” Yoon said. “He looked really rough, someone who’s really gone through the mill — his skin was really tan, and I was immediately convinced that if it was someone like him put in the operation, he could pull it off.”

“K and his family visited us on our second day on the set, and I felt great energy from him,” Ha said. “Even though he's of an old age, he looked brawny and energetic enough that he could still climb up a mountain in the blink of an eye.

“Like his character, he was the breadwinner from a young age and is known to have had a tough life to provide for his family,” Ha said. “I came to learn that he played a huge role in the Suriname operation.”

K first came to know Cho in 2006, when he partnered up with a friend to invest his entire fortune of 200 million won to launch his own business in Suriname. Instead of importing fish as in the Netflix series, his business was to supply welding rods for ships. Cho was his friend’s business partner.

“The business flourished, but Cho was the middleman,” K said during the 2011 interview. “But Cho didn’t pay us anything. When we brought the issue up, he gave lame excuses, saying that [the clients] didn’t pay him. After some time, I got used to the language and the geography and personally visited them [the clients]. They told me they all gave the money to Cho. He snatched the money in the middle [...] That all happened in the three months after I arrived in Suriname. We tried as best as we could to revive the business, but there was no way, so I requested for help from the Korean embassy in Venezuela in November 2007.”



Cho Bong-haeng

Cho, unlike the drug lord/pastor as the series paints him, did not start off his life of crime with drugs. He first arrived to Suriname in the 1980s and stayed there for eight years as a marine engineer. His life of crime began in Korea when he stole 1 billion won under the pretense that it was being used for the construction of buildings. When he began to be investigated by police, he fled to Suriname, obtained nationality in 1995 and set up his own fish factory, which was a cover-up for oil theft. He turned to drugs as smuggling oil grew more difficult due to escalating prices and rigid trade control.

Cho was a natural at persuasion, skilled at drawing people to his side and networking. He had good relationships with high-ranking officials and police, and was well-acquainted with the former Surinamese president Desi Bourtese, who, during the time of Cho’s crime, was a military strongman.

However, the real Cho was no pastor. Yoon added this plot point for the story’s plausibility.

“I thought, what kind of person and what profession would feel reliable, trustworthy, while simultaneously give out the vibe that he is a man of authority,” Yoon said. “And only the profession of a pastor came to my mind. I personally have no feelings against the church.”

Cho turned his full attention to drug smuggling when his oil trafficking business failed. He used Koreans in Suriname as drug mules, targeting poor housewives and college students, saying that he would give them 4 to 5 million won to carry jewelry — which contained cocaine — to Europe.

One of the housewives, who claimed she had no idea that she was carrying drugs, was caught and arrested in France in October 2004. She was 37 years old. Only known by her surname Jang, her story was adapted into a film “Way Back Home” (2013).

When asked about Cho’s current whereabouts, Yoon replied that it remains “unknown, as both the NIS and prosecutors said that they can’t reveal that information.”

On Sept. 17, local media outlet Channel A reported that Cho had died on April 19, 2016, at a hospital in Gwangju. He was 64 years old. His cause of death was noted as high blood pressure and heart failure.

Cho served five years of his sentence at a prison in Haenam, South Jeolla, before he was released due to poor health.



K the father

During the 2011 interview, K said he agreed to help the NIS because he “didn’t want to be a disgraceful father” to his two daughters and son.

“If I leave here now, I would only be a loser, and I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything if I go back to Korea,” K said.

To catch Cho’s attention, K intentionally went around the region causing havoc in casinos and clubs. With the NIS and Drug Enforcement Administration, K convinces Cho that he should be the middleman between Cho and a fictional Korean-American drug dealer active in Korea.

The real events seem to be even more preposterous than the series. Unlike K's character, who had NIS agents by his side to infiltrate the drug organization, K was alone in dealing with Cho.

K slept with a gun underneath his pillow and admitted that there were times he questioned his choice.

“If something went wrong, I was worried I’d never get to see my family again,” he said. “By then, however, I'd gone too far to go back.”

Cho was caught in Brazil in July 2009, reluctantly drawn out by K under the pretense that the drug dealer demanded to meet Cho in person before closing the big deal. One of the biggest difficulties in capturing Cho was that there was no extradition treaty between Suriname and Korea at the time.

When Yoon asked K his reason behind letting his story be adapted into a series, K said his story was all he had left of his adventure in Suriname.

“I went to Suriname for my business to earn money but instead ended up losing all of it, and spent the most important three years of my life away from my family,” he said. “There’s nothing left [of this journey] but my story. Even when I tell my colleagues or friends about it, they don’t believe me. They treat me as a madman.”

Yoon said K’s thoughts were reflected for the ending of the last episode.

“It was very moving,” Yoon said, “that this ordinary man gave his story without any intention of profit, but just for the sake of having his story told.”


BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]