A South Korean man faces thousands of dollars in fines for importing and selling North Korean novels following his conviction for breaking the country’s inter-Korean exchange law. 

The Seoul Central District Court found 60-year-old Jung Ik-hyeon guilty of violating the Inter-Korean Exchange and Cooperation Act and fined him some $2,500 (3 million won) on Sunday, the court confirmed to NK News.

Jung, who heads a pro-unification activist group called South-North Korea Farmers Unification Cooperative, smuggled in North Korean e-books on USB drives between 2018 and 2020 without prior approval from the unification ministry.

South Korea restricts most forms of