Kang Myung-do, then son-in-law of North Korea's premier, made a spectacular claim about Pyongyang's nuclear capability when he defected to the South over two decades ago, asserting the secretive country had built five atomic bombs.
His testimony at a news conference in 1994 came 12 years before North Korea conducted its first nuclear test and, like many allegations about the country, was never proven. Asked last week about its veracity, Kang said he was sharing the information he had at the time.
Now 56, Kang appears on a news show on one of four different South Korean TV stations every day, earning 100,000 won ($90) each time, a beneficiary of the proliferation of TV channels and lectures that has created a small class of celebrity North Korean defectors — as well as the temptation to embellish.