North Korea knows how to treat its economists...

That's what we need - a gulag for economists...

North Korea sent nearly three dozen relatives of former economic officials to a prison camp over the country's botched currency reform, a South Korean aid group said Tuesday.

North Korea's Ministry of State Security last month sent 34 relatives of former economic official Pak Nam Gi and others to a prison camp on the outskirts of the northern city of Hoeryong, Seoul-based Good Friends said on its website.

The communist North redenominated its currency late last year to fight inflation and reassert control over its burgeoning market economy. The measure, however, reportedly sparked unrest as it left many North Koreans stuck with piles of worthless bills.

Pak spearheaded the reform as the former finance and planning department chief of the ruling Workers' Party. He and an unidentified senior official were reportedly executed by a firing squad at a Pyongyang stadium in March as punishment for the policy failure.

On June 14, the relatives of Pak and other officials were collected and forcibly loaded into a wagon before being sent to the prison camp, the organization reported, citing an unidentified official at the North's security ministry.

The authorities transported the relatives in the middle of night in part to keep it a secret from the rest of the world to avoid international criticism, the official was quoted as saying.