The government will crack down on Southeast Asia-based operators who illegally broker the passage of North Korean defectors to South Korea.

A Seoul official says the brokers' criminal activity was deemed a necessary evil in the past, assisting defectors in their efforts to flee. But now, the government plans to oversee the legality of how these transactions are brokered once the defectors enter South Korea and will even go as far as looking into past irregularities.

A government source, however, cautions that illegal deeds by some brokers were a known fact but this should not affect other goodwilled human rights activity.