With a major reshuffle of important party positions revealed through reports from North Korea’s Eighth Party Congress in January, Kim Jong Un appears to be strengthening his control of the Organizational Guidance Department (OGD), tightening his grip on the country’s elite and attempting to crack down on corruption.

The OGD is a notoriously secretive organization. As a result, human rights activists, North Korean leadership watchers and researchers alike have struggled to learn much about it beyond its basic structure.

However, a close look at reports from North Korea’s Eighth Party Congress in