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# Accused North Korean spy to go on trial this summer
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/accused-north-korean-spy-to-go-on-trial-this-summer/
- Published: 2003-06-02T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T02:16:32.000Z
- Author: John Wood
- Tags: Crime, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Accused North Korean spy to go on trial this summer*

The wife of a former Santa Monica businessman who is accused of spying for the North Korean government has agreed to plead guilty to illegally bringing more than $18,000 into the United States.

As part of her plea, Susan Yai, wife of John Joungwang Yai, will avoid the maximum penalty of five years in prison, three years of supervised release from jail and a fine of $250,000.

Instead, Susan Yai is expected to be sentenced to probation and asked to cooperate with federal officials, according to the plea agreement, which was signed late last month by Susan Yai and Paul Loh, her lawyer.

Both the plea and sentencing are scheduled to take place on Tuesday morning.

Susan Yai was charged with illegally bringing more than $10,000 into the U.S. and lying to customs officials about it after she failed to report $18,000 she and her husband carried into Los Angeles International Airport on a flight from Zurich, Switzerland in April of 2000\. The couple said that because they were returning with roughly $9,000 each, they did-n’t think they had to report it. They told customs officials they had taken the money to Europe to buy wedding jewelry for their children, but decided to return with the money because they found the prices and selection for jewelry in Europe no better than in the U.S.

But FBI investigators taped telephone conversations between the Yais that they say prove the couple made up their story after the fact and knowingly lied to customs officials.

Where the money actually came from is unclear. But John Yai has allegedly been paid in the past by the North Korean government for spying in the U.S., said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office.

John Yai, who pleaded innocent to the spy charges earlier this year, posted $400,000 bail in April and is expected to go before jurors sometime this summer. Until recently, he owned the snack shop, Bon Appetit, on Wilshire Boulevard.

John Yai was arrested Feb. 4 at his home located at 909 Grant St. in Santa Monica. He is accused of being paid by the North Korean government to recruit agents to spy on the U.S. government. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in jail, prosecutors said.

The FBI had been observing Yai since 1995\. Investigators bugged John Yai’s downtown L.A. office and allegedly intercepted faxes, e-mail messages and telephone calls between John Yai and North Korean officials. The communications were often loaded with code words, the FBI said.

A 76-page affidavit written by FBI special agent James G. Chang highlights years of e-mail messages, faxes and telephone conversations between John Yai, an agent that he recruited and a handful of high ranking officials in the People’s Republic of China and North Korea.

John Yai allegedly provided the North Korean government mostly with information that already was made public in the United States via newspaper articles and the Internet. However, North Korean government officials allegedly instructed John Yai in 1998 to obtain classified information and not to continue to feed them information already made public.

John Yai allegedly told the agent he hired that the Korean government expected 100 to 150 reports a year, about 40 of which get submitted to top-ranking officials. Highest paid work with convicts and mentally ill

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 2, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/060203.pdf?ref=smdp.com)