Kim Jong Un death hoax debunked and Cao de Benós's role

Kim Jong Un 'resurrects' within hours and the North Korean regime turns the hoax into propaganda

The news of Marshal Kim Jong Un's death circulated widely until, within just a few hours, the regime itself debunked it with a public appearance: on 19 October, the North Korean leader visited the Light Industry Exhibition. The episode, mocked in economic gossip circles, leaves an uncomfortable question: why does a death rumor generate more coverage than the real economy of the world's most closed country?

The message that started the conversation made things clear from the very first second: "CAO DE BENÓS!!! Reports that the leader is alive!!", accompanied by a tweet from the North Korean representative in Spain. The irony about socialists and their supposed refuge in Pyongyang added the first layer of humor. The second came with the clothes: the Marshal appeared in an outfit that some compared to Dickies aesthetics, and others to the wardrobe of Chino Moreno, Deftones' singer. The leader's attire as a political thermometer is no minor detail in a regime that choreographs every public appearance to the millimeter.

The notebooks of the entourage and the light industry theater

One focus of the analysis was the entourage that trinc the leader with notebooks in hand. The question was inevitable: what are they writing down? The official answer, spread by Cao de Benós himself, holds that they take notes of the Marshal's suggestions to pass them on to workers without distortion. The leader as the source of all ideas, and the entourage as their notary. The scene, typical of a planned economy that needs to stage the chief's infallibility, became an object of mockery: "he's supposed to make suggestions and the notebook people write them down to change things."

The event itself — an exhibition of clothing and footwear — was read as a symptom. Some argue that inaugurating a clothing fair is hardly the priority of a country with supply problems. Light industry as a showcase serves to display normality, not to fix shortages. The staging includes smoking indoors, a gesture that in the West is now almost clandestine but which in North Korea is displayed as a privilege of power.

The cigar, the hand and the body-double theory

The appearance did not convince everyone. A meticulous analysis of the photographs detected a detail that fueled suspicion: the cigar appears in different hands depending on the image, and the traditional suit — the so-called people's suit — had not been seen in his appearances for some time. The body-double or android theory gained adherents among those who see an image operation in every gesture. "He looks different to me," admitted one of the most detail-oriented observers, while another closed the matter with a smirk: "I couldn't remember the last time I saw him wearing the people's suit."

The comparison with previous appearances — ballistic tests, visits to weapons factories — served to build a chronology of the wardrobe and the cigar. Image analysis as political analysis in a country with no free press. The most repeated conclusion: if it's a double, the cigar mistake is textbook; if it's the original, the message is that he is alive and in charge.

Cao de Benós, the Spanish aristocrat in Pyongyang

The figure of Alejandro Cao de Benós drew much of the interest. His profile — descended from Spanish nobility, linked to Carlist and far-right families, with a stint in the Air Force police — is as striking as his position: special delegate of the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries of the North Korean government. The only foreign-born person holding a North Korean representative post, according to his own account, which dates back to 1990, when at 16 he phoned a North Korean delegation in Madrid and invited himself to an event.

His story includes episodes he himself publicizes: a passport withheld for years, meetings of the friendship association with Korea in Tarragona, and a relationship with the regime that began when he was a teenager without an invitation. The Spanish connection to Pyongyang has a first and last name, and his figure arouses both curiosity and rejection. The tarot anecdote and his statements about Iran complete a character who needs no exaggeration.

The hoax as an information weapon

The episode leaves a lesson about disinformation. The news of the leader's death circulated without confirmation and was debunked within hours. The hoax as a credulity test worked both ways: the outlets that spread it without verifying, and those who denied it just as quickly. The Marshal's public appearance, dated 19 October, settled the rumor, but not the question of who launched it and why.

In a context of trade and technological tension in Asia — with South Korea immersed in the memory chip and AI models bubble — media attention to a dictator's life or death shifts the gaze away from what really moves the economy. Information as spectacle has a cost: the reader stops looking at the data. How many more hoaxes will it take for the Marshal's next appearance not to be news?