I would well imagine that most – if not all – of us have our preconceived notion of what the Kim Jong-Mentally-Il regime is all about.  Unpredictable, for certain.  Certainly bold in their approach to the West and the rest of the international community.  And most assuredly, they have made some boneheaded decisions in reference to their country and their people.

But nonetheless, despite what we know or think about the North Korean leadership, there’s at least one person who knows a lot more than we do: an actual North Korean defector.  That’s right, a defector from the Hermit Kingdom.  And he had plenty to say.  The defector in question?  He would be one Kim Kwang Jin.  Now a little bit about him.

He is 42 years old, a former English professor at a computer college in Pyongyang (the north Korean capital) and now a visiting fellow with the D.C.-based Committee for Human Rights.  And he is also, according to NorKor analysts, the first English-speaking defector to escape the country.

And some of the things that he had to share – specifically in an interview with FOX News – were quite revealing, including a stint with the Northeast Asia Bank and Korea National Insurance Corporation, where he handled accounts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.  Some disclosures by Kwang Jin include:

• Two economies existed in North Korea – one administered by the North Korean Cabinet and a “Royal Court economy”, which is financed by illegal enterprises internationally and providing the hard currency which kept Kim Jong-Il and his buddies in power and luxury.

According to Kwang Jin,

“Kim [Jong Il] himself enjoys a lavish lifestyle. He is giving gifts to his associates: the Mercedes-Benz[es] and whiskeys, first-class room and [air]fare from Japan. Everything’s provided to his aides….Kim Jong Il himself is now ruling the country with [the] dollar, hard currency….Without hard currency they cannot rule the country.”

He also mentioned that the regime’s largest source of hard currency comes from the secret manufacture and sale of weapons of mass destruction (WMD’s).  After that comes the regime’s multibillion-dollar insurance fraud business, in which authorities stage arson and bogus accidents in which to collect multimillion-dollar payouts from international banks and insurers.

Kwang Jin is of the belief that the North Koreans have never dealt in good faith with the U.S. (that’s stating the obvious as the NorKors have never dealt in good faith with just about everyone save their cohorts) and at the same time, he thinks that financial sanctions will be the way to bring the NorKors to their knees as it is expected that the successor to Jong-Il (his son Kim Jong Un) will be markedly weaker.

Perhaps the timing of Kwang Jin’s coming out with this information could be beneficial to the Obama administration; however, I think it is highly unlikely that they will consult with him and try to benefit from this North Korean defector’s wealth of knowledge.