featured work from my portfolio

Featured

Apr 4, 2023

BBC: Lazarus Heist: The intercontinental ATM theft that netted $14m in two hours

Apr 4, 2023

It was an audacious crime characterised by its grand scale and meticulous synchronisation. Criminals had plundered ATMs in 28 different countries, including the United States, the UK, the United Arab Emirates and Russia. It all happened in the space of just two hours and 13 minutes - an extraordinary global flash mob of crime.

Apr 4, 2023

Mar 27, 2023

BBC: The Lazarus Heist: S2, Ep 1: Jackpotting

Mar 27, 2023

Millions of dollars are stolen from ATMs at the same time in 28 countries. An army of money mules stuff the cash into bags. Do they know who they are really working for? In just over two hours, the thieves take nearly $14 million - all from the accounts of Cosmos Bank in India.

Mar 27, 2023

Mar 26, 2023

BBC: The Lazarus Heist

Mar 26, 2023

Download all episodes of The Lazarus Heist, watch Lazarus Heist animations, read our feature story about the hackers and view visualizations of the podcast episodes on Lazarus Heist homepage on the BBC World Service website!

Mar 26, 2023

Mar 10, 2023

BBC: The Lazarus Heist: Season 2 trailer

Mar 10, 2023

The hackers are back – and they are accused of being more dangerous than ever. Their cyber-attacks are getting more sophisticated and audacious. It’s claimed they are getting away with billions. North Korea denies everything.

Mar 10, 2023

Sep 20, 2022

BBC: The Lazarus Heist - LIVE!

Sep 20, 2022

Lazarus Heist live

A special episode recorded in front of an audience in New York. What’s it like working in North Korea? How are hackers tracked in real time? #LazarusHeist

Sep 20, 2022

Jun 8, 2022

New York Times Opinion: There’s a Reason Kim Jong-un Wants Us to Know About North Korea’s Covid Outbreak

Jun 8, 2022

It’s a frightening prospect for an unvaccinated, undernourished nation of 25 million people. But bad news does not escape North Korea without a reason. Finally acknowledging a viral outbreak may be part of a strategy by its leader, Kim Jong-un, to re-engage with the outside world. The world should be ready to engage, too.

Jun 8, 2022

Mar 14, 2022

New York Times Opinion: Kim Jong-un Is Just Getting Started

Mar 14, 2022

If it seems as if North Korea wants us to sit up and pay attention — Don’t forget, we’re still building missiles and nuclear weapons! — that’s certainly one of its objectives.

But these tests are about a lot more.

Mar 14, 2022

Jun 21, 2021

BBC: The Lazarus Heist: How North Korea almost pulled off a billion-dollar hack

Jun 21, 2021

In 2016 North Korean hackers planned a $1bn raid on Bangladesh's national bank and came within an inch of success - it was only by a fluke that all but $81m of the transfers were halted, report Geoff White and Jean H Lee. But how did one of the world's poorest and most isolated countries train a team of elite cyber-criminals?

Jun 21, 2021

Apr 27, 2021

BBC: The Lazarus Heist, S1, Ep2: Disaster Movie

Apr 27, 2021

“I was terrified.” Panic in Hollywood, careers ruined and helium filled balloons sent to North Korea. President Obama makes clear who he blames for the Sony hack.

Apr 27, 2021

Apr 18, 2021

BBC: The Lazarus Heist, S1, Ep1: Hacking Hollywood

Apr 18, 2021

A movie, Kim Jong-un and a devastating cyber attack. The story of the Sony hack. How the Lazarus Group hackers caused mayhem in Hollywood and for Sony Pictures Entertainment. And this is just the beginning…

Apr 18, 2021

Apr 8, 2021

BBC: Introducing the Lazarus Heist

Apr 8, 2021

The most daring bank theft ever attempted? From hacking Hollywood to a billion-dollar plot. Premieres 19 April 2021. With Geoff White and Jean Lee.

Apr 8, 2021

Jun 20, 2020

Wilson Quarterly: Guns and Hunger

Jun 20, 2020

My family’s wartime tale is not particularly remarkable; their harrowing experience could be told a million times over. This is not a tale of military heroism, or even one of selfless sacrifice. It is simply the story of one family of ordinary Koreans who survived the three cruel and crushing years of war that killed nearly a million South Korean civilians.

Jun 20, 2020

Mar 27, 2020

Prospect: How South Korea flattened the curve

Mar 27, 2020

As other countries hurtle toward disaster, South Korea looks like the safer and smarter place to be. So what can other governments learn about how to handle coronavirus?

by Jean H Lee / March 27, 2020

Mar 27, 2020

Feb 11, 2020

Asia Dispatches: Korea Rising: Why We’re Celebrating Parasite’s Big Oscar Night

Feb 11, 2020

Bong “came of age just as South Korea was making the transition to the First World and as the internet brought the world to Seoul. His influences are broad and worldly, and his movies reveal a newfound sense of empowerment and independence as a South Korean. He made a South Korean film, set in South Korea, touching on South Korean issues — but informed by techniques and inspiration gleaned from influences around the world. I’m in awe of his vision — and his strength of mind in casting aside conformism to make a film that risked the disapproval of those who seek to portray South Korea in only a positive light."

Feb 11, 2020

Jun 28, 2019

Australian Outlook: The Wooing of Kim Jong Un: Love Letters and Lavish Banquets

Jun 28, 2019

What a difference a week makes when it comes to diplomacy with North Korea.

Earlier this month, one year after the dramatic Singapore Summit of June 2018, nuclear negotiations with North Korea appeared stuck in a standstill. Pyongyang was giving friends and foes the cold shoulder as leader Kim Jong Un remained in retreat following his failed second summit with US President Donald Trump in Hanoi in late February.

Then, in the span of just a few heady days from 20 June to 22 June, Kim not only hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in a state visit that granted the young North Korean leader tremendous legitimacy but also revealed the exchange of another set of “love letters” with Trump.

In a flash, we went from fears of provocation to the first movement on the moribund nuclear negotiations with North Korea in months. With Trump heading to Asia for the G20 summit and high-level meetings with Xi, Japan’s Shinzo Abe and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in, we’re likely to hear calls for a third Trump-Kim summit as regional leaders seek to build momentum for renewed talks with North Korea.

And despite the head-spinning speed of developments, none of this comes as a surprise. Here’s why.

Jun 28, 2019

May 15, 2018

NPR: 2 Generations, 2 Different Perspectives On Korean Reunification

May 15, 2018

Fleeing war in North Korea in 1951, my aunt and her siblings scrambled aboard an American cargo ship pulling away from port, her parents and grandmother shouting their names to keep track of them in the chaos of the evacuation. They made it. But their grandfather stayed behind in Wonsan to protect the family property.

He thought his family would return. They never saw him, or the rest of their family in North Korea, again.

As the leaders of North Korea, South Korea and the United States discuss denuclearization and a possible peace treaty to formally end the Korean War of the 1950s, I wanted to check in with my aunt, a child of the war who was born in North Korea, and her millennial daughter Euni Cho, who grew up in democratic, thriving South Korea.

May 15, 2018

Feb 12, 2018

BBC Radio 4: A Korean Thaw?

Feb 12, 2018

From bombs to Olympic banners: Can winter sports diplomacy stop a war in the Korean peninsula? North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un took the world by surprise with his announcement that his nation and South Koreawould unite under a single banner at the Winter Olympics. Was it a diplomatic masterstroke or a cynical stunt? Journalist Jean Lee pieces together what really led to this public relations coup.

Feb 12, 2018

Feb 8, 2018

New York Times Sunday Review: Will North Korea Win the Gold Medal for Deceit?

Feb 8, 2018

North Korea’s participation in these Olympics runs the risk of rewarding bad behavior and handing Mr. Kim a diplomatic victory that he will brandish as proof that his strategy was right. Still, we have to start somewhere after so many years of tension.

Feb 8, 2018

Dec 18, 2017

KEI: Soap Operas and Socialism

Dec 18, 2017

Romance, humor, tension — everyone loves a good sitcom, even North Koreans. But in North Korea, TV dramas are more than mere entertainment. They play a crucial political role by serving as a key messenger of party and government policy. They aim to shape social and cultural mores in North Korean society. And in the Kim Jong-un era, they act as an advertisement for the “good life” promised to the political elite.

Dec 18, 2017

Aug 11, 2017

New York Times Op-Ed: Donald Trump is giving North Korea exactly what it wants

Aug 11, 2017

If President Trump thinks that his threats last week of “fire and fury” and weapons “locked and loaded” have North Koreans quaking in their boots, he should think again. If anything, the Mao-suit-clad cadres in Pyongyang are probably gleeful that the president of the United States has played straight into their propaganda.

Aug 11, 2017

Aug 10, 2017

Esquire: Inside Kim Jong Un's bloody scramble to kill off his family

Aug 10, 2017

While Kim Jong Un stares down his enemies abroad, it's easy to forget that he's also fighting a battle from within his own borders: to survive at all costs. Like any autocratic leader, he's under constant pressure to maintain order and allegiance. But his youth and inexperience make staying in power that much more of a challenge, which in turn requires absolute control. Opposition must be eliminated. No one is safe, not even his own family.

Aug 10, 2017

Jun 1, 2017

Wilson Quarterly: For North Korea, the War Never Ended

Jun 1, 2017

We in the United States often call the Korean conflict the “Forgotten War.” My high school history textbook in Minnesota devoted barely a paragraph to it, and growing up as the child of Korean immigrants, I knew almost nothing about a war my own parents survived as children. But the war is very much alive and present in North Korea, and the standoff with the United States figures prominently in their propaganda, identity, and policy.

Jun 1, 2017

Feb 24, 2017

New York Times Op-Ed: North Korea's Palace Intrigue

Feb 24, 2017

After the 14th-century Korean ruler Taejo, founder of the Joseon dynasty, chose the youngest of his eight sons to succeed him, a spurned son killed the heir apparent and at least one of his other half brothers and eventually rose to the throne. Today, rumors of royal fratricide are again swirling, this time around the court of Kim Jong-un, the ruler of North Korea.

Feb 24, 2017

PYONGYANG, North Korea -- Middle school students work on a computer in front of a poster of North Korea's rockets and satellites behind them in this photo taken in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Oct. 24, 2011. (Photo credit: Jean H. Lee)

Jan 7, 2016

New York Times Magazine: Kim Jong Un's Generational Ambitions

Jan 7, 2016

It was party time in Pyongyang. Workers scrambled to hang congratulatory banners in the lobby of the Koryo Hotel, my home away from home in the North Korean capital, where I was posted as an Associated Press correspondent. A gaggle of cooks, still in aprons and chef’s hats, dashed out from the kitchen to watch the festivities, and mothers tightened the pink bows in their daughters’ hair as the girls fidgeted in anticipation.

Jan 7, 2016

Jul 20, 2013

AP: Vet Returns to North Korea for 1st Black Navy Aviator

Jul 20, 2013

Two years after he made history by becoming the Navy's first black pilot, Ensign Jesse Brown lay trapped in his downed fighter plane in subfreezing North Korea, his leg broken and bleeding. His wingman crash-landed to try to save him, and even burned his hands trying to put out the flames.

Jul 20, 2013

Apr 29, 2013

AP: Pyongyang Glitters, but Rest of North Korea Still Dark

Apr 29, 2013

A year after leader Kim Jong Un promised in a speech to bring an end to the "era of belt-tightening" and economic hardship in North Korea, the gap between the haves and have-nots has only grown with Pyongyang's transformation.

Apr 29, 2013

Sep 24, 2012

AP: Sweeping New Changes Expected at North Korean Farms

Sep 24, 2012

North Korean farmers who have long been required to turn most of their crops over to the state may now be allowed to keep their surplus food to sell or barter in what could be the most significant economic change enacted by young leader Kim Jong Un since he came to power nine months ago.

Sep 24, 2012

Jul 12, 2012

AP: Ex-North Korean Star Recalls 'Ping Pong Diplomacy'

Jul 12, 2012

Her eyes well up when Li Pun Hui recalls her role in a historic example of "ping pong diplomacy."

"For 50 days, 24 hours a day, we lived together as one, trained together, slept in the same room and ate all our meals together," Li told The Associated Press at an interview in Pyongyang. "We shared the same food and our feelings."

Jul 12, 2012

Jun 23, 2012

AP: In North Korea, learning to hate US starts early

Jun 23, 2012

For North Koreans, the systematic indoctrination of anti-Americanism starts as early as kindergarten and is as much a part of the curriculum as learning to count.

Jun 23, 2012

Apr 8, 2012

AP: North Korea's Bethlehem is Birthplace of Kim Religion

Apr 8, 2012

As the snow drifts through the towering evergreen trees, silence enshrouds this remote pilgrimage site, a place some here consider the Bethlehem of North Korea.

As North Korea celebrates the centenary of Kim Il Sung's birth, his past, like the misty peaks of Mount Paektu, remains veiled in myth.

Apr 8, 2012

AP: Google Executive Gets Look at North Koreans Using Internet →

January 9, 2013

Students at North Korea's premier university showed Google's executive chairman how they look for information online: They Google it.

But surfing the Internet that way is the privilege of only a very few in North Korea, whose authoritarian government imposes strict limits on access to the World Wide Web.

Google's Eric Schmidt got a first look at North Korea's limited Internet usage when an American delegation he and former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson are leading visited a computer lab Tuesday at Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang.