SEOUL (AFP) – A North Korean agent who switched sides and prospered in South Korea was recruited again decades later by Pyongyang after being promised visits to his mother in the North, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

The 63-year-old surnamed Han was arrested last week over a plot to assassinate a top-ranking defector in the South. “He was recruited again by the North in 1996 and entered North Korea four times until 2007 to see his mother,” the prosecutor told AFP on condition of anonymity, giving more details of a case first reported last week.

Han’s twisted fate began in 1965 when he was selected for training as an agent in the communist state, according to news reports confirmed by the prosecutor.

On the night of July 20, 1969 Han and a colleague named Cho landed on the southwest coast of South Korea, carrying pistols, six grenades, a radio transmitter and 100,000 dollars in cash.

They travelled to Seoul four days later but a resident spotted the pistols in their bags and reported them to police, resulting in their arrest. Han shifted loyalties to the South, informed on other spies and was released the following year.

He got a job with a large company, married a South Korean woman and made a fortune through land speculation.

Despite his successful life, he still missed his mother in the North. In the 1990s he travelled to Yanbian in China, where separated families from North and South met secretly, in hopes of meeting her.

North Korea’s intelligence agency became aware of Han’s desire. In return for allowing him into the North to meet his mother and brothers there, they recruited him back in 1996.