The Spanish authorities returned the material that had been stolen from the North Korean embassy in Madrid by a group of assailants last February.
The unprecedented attack took place on the afternoon of February 22 in a quiet neighborhood in the north of Madrid, where the North Korean embassy is located. Ten assailants, all Asian-looking men, entered the three-story building from the main gate, brandishing guns, which later turned out to be fake. They tied up and gagged the embassy staff and some embassy visitors. After several hours spent inside the buildings, the assailants left the building in two embassy vehicles, then found abandoned.
Weeks after the raid, a group of North Korean dissidents calling themselves Cheollima Civil Defense - also known as Free Joseon - claimed responsibility for the attack. Cheollima Civil Defense is North Korea's first known active resistance group. Its members demand the overthrow of the Kim dynasty. Subsequent reports said some of those who took part in the embassy fled to the United States and approached the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with a proposal to hand over hardware and phones captured in the attack. On Tuesday, the Reuters news agency reported that the FBI "returned the material to the Spanish authorities two weeks ago" and that the Spanish police then handed it over to North Koreans. Citing "a Spanish judicial source," Reuters said American authorities returned the material directly to the Spanish court investigating the raid.
According to the news agency, the Spanish authorities returned the material to the North Korean embassy without analyzing the contents, thus respecting the rules of the diplomatic protocol. The report does not clarify whether the FBI returned all the stolen material in February, nor did it state whether the FBI checked its contents before handing it over to the Spanish court.