South Korea’s highest court has acquitted a North Korean defector who helped facilitate money transfers to family members in the North, marking the court’s first such ruling in a remittance case.

The Supreme Court of Korea on Thursday dismissed the prosecution’s appeal and finalized the acquittal against the defector, a court spokesperson told NK News. The defector previously received a one-year conditional fine of 1 million won ($744.30) in Feb. 2025, according to a lower court’s ruling.

The unnamed defendant was accused of allowing defectors to use her and a China-based acquaintance’s bank account on 11 occasions to transfer