Jilin prison authorities issued a bounty notice offering up to $23,000 for the capture of a North Korean defector who broke out of Jilin prison on October 18, 2021. Chinese authorities identified the fugitive as 39-year-old Zhu Xianjian, who had been sentenced to 11 years and 3 months in 2014 on counts of illegal border crossing into China, larceny and armed robbery.

Zhu’s Defection from North Korea

Chinese court documents state that on July 21, 2013, Zhu, a coal miner from North Hamgyong, had illegally crossed the border after swimming across a river from North Korea to China and had entered into an elderly female victim’s house in Tumen City through a broken window at around 1 a.m. the following morning. Zhu was discovered by the victim as he took her bag containing 1,482 RMB (around $232 USD), six sugar cubes, five bank deposit books, two identification cards, a handkerchief and a fan. He then stabbed her in the back with a knife in order to resist arrest, resulting in the victim being seriously injured.

Later that day, Zhu broke into a neighboring male victim’s house where he stole a mobile phone, a wallet, and a pair of shoes, and subsequently stole from a third victim’s house six boxes of North Korea cigarettes, a shirt, a pair of shorts, a bag, a folding knife, a towel, a pair of socks, and two cans of beer, before being caught by the police.

According to the judgment, Zhu did not deny any of the allegations made against him. It is also interesting to note that the court had separately highlighted the seriousness of Zhu’s illegal border crossing into China, which is reflected by sentencing him at Jilin prison, one of the five prisons for the most serious felons in Jilin Province according to state media.

Zhu’s 11 years and three months sentence was later reduced twice in 2017 and 2020 respectively for good behavior and a show of remorse. At the time of Zhu’s escape, he had less than two years of jail term to serve before being deported back to North Korea on August 21, 2023.

Zhu’s Prison Break

A surveillance video from Jilin prison shows Zhu and fellow inmates working in the prison yard when he suddenly climbed to the rooftop of a shed on the edge of the prison, and used what appeared to be a rope to damage the electric fences around the facility, before scaling the fence to flee. Upon jumping off a six-meter prison wall, the five foot three Zhu ran into the dark and has remained at large to this date.

Many Chinese social media users speculate that Zhu only managed to escape because the prison guards could not leave prison grounds to chase him. According to statements from prisons in Guizhou and Guangdong provinces, Chinese authorities have ordered a closed duty system where prison guards were required to stay within the facility compound for at least seven days in accordance with the state’s Covid-19 control measures. Meanwhile, prison guards in Tianjin, a city near Beijing, spend 14 days in centralized quarantine facilities before working 14-day shifts inside prisons to reduce risk of infection.

Becoming China’s Most Wanted

The Chinese authorities offer $15,600 for information that helps capture Zhu and the reward could rise to $23,400 for clues that lead directly to his arrest (which is considered a handsome reward considering the average monthly salary in Jilin city is $2,142). Additionally, officials made it clear that whoever knowingly fails to report or aids Zhu will be investigated for legal responsibility.

Meanwhile, local police issued notices warning citizens “to pay attention, not to provoke [Zhu], who is extremely dangerous”. In addition to performing extensive roadside searches and blocking off the entrances to nearby villages, the police have also conducted a house-to-house search for Zhu and expanded their search radius to 350km away in Inner Mongolia.

The news of Zhu’s escape soon drew more than 22 million views on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform. However, the escalating public attention triggered censorship by the authorities, leading to the removal of the bounty notice from Jilin prison’s social media account and posts related to Zhu’s prison break, including posts shared by “insiders” suggesting that Zhu had previously served in the North Korean Special Forces thus is familiar with the use of weapons and that “he ran away to avoid being repatriated back to North Korea where he would be killed, therefore he would have freedom if he escapes from prison, and even if he is caught, he would not be sentenced to death in China”. According to Human Rights Watch, there are currently an estimated 450 North Korean men held in Jilin prison waiting to be deported after serving their sentence.