A high-ranking North Korean intelligence officer fled to South Korea last year, the Seoul government confirmed Monday, according to Fox News.
The colonel, whose name was not revealed by the South Korean government, worked for the North Korean military's General Reconnaissance Bureau, the state authority believed to be behind two deadly attacks blamed on Pyongyang that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010.
The General Reconnaissance Bureau also deals in cyber warfare, and it is widely suspected of staging the 2014 hack attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment.
South Korea's Yonhap News Agency said the colonel is considered an elite member of North Korean society by other defectors from the Communist dictatorship.
"He is believed to have stated details about the bureau's operations against South Korea to authorities here," the agency quoted a source as saying.
The announcement of the colonel's defection came three days after South Korea disclosed 13 North Koreans working at the same restaurant in a foreign country had defected to the South, the largest group defection since North Korea's young leader Kim Jong Un took power in late 2011. he 1950-53 Korean War, according to South Korean government records. Many defectors have testified they wanted to avoid the North's harsh political system and poverty.
Defections are a bitter source of contention between the rival Koreas, which are still divided along the world's most heavily fortified border since the end of the Korean War. Pyongyang usually accuses Seoul of enticing North Korean citizens to defect, something Seoul denies.