Viral Post Claims Disneyland Tokyo Once Made Kim Jong-un Use A Fake Passport To Visit: What We Know

A post circulating widely on social media has sparked renewed interest in a long-standing story linked to North Korea's ruling family. The viral post alleges that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un once posed as a Brazilian national to travel to Japan and visit Tokyo Disneyland as a child.

The post claims that Kim Jong-un and his older brother, Kim Jong-chul, entered Japan in the early 1990s using fraudulent Brazilian passports. According to the caption accompanying the viral post, both brothers were accompanied by a group of North Korean officials during the trip.

About The Post

The caption read, "In May 1991, an eight-year-old Kim Jong Un and his older brother, Kim Jong-chul, successfully entered Japan to visit Tokyo Disneyland by using fraudulent Brazilian passports. Reports from Japanese security officials and media outlets like the Yomiuri Shimbun indicate the brothers were accompanied by approximately ten North Korean officials and stayed in the country for over a week."

The post further claimed that Kim Jong-un travelled under a false identity during the visit and returned to the theme park multiple times. It also suggested a reason why Brazilian passports were allegedly used.

It added, "During this secret trip, they reportedly visited the theme park multiple times while the future leader traveled under the pseudonym 'Josef Pwag'. Brazilian documents were likely chosen by the Kim family because the country's diverse population allowed East Asians to blend in more easily than with other foreign papers. While this early mission was successful, a similar attempt in 2001 by their half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, resulted in his detention at Narita Airport and subsequent deportation, an embarrassment that is widely believed to have cost him his position as the primary heir to the North Korean leadership."

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More Details

A 2018 report by the BBC provided background on these claims and cited reporting by Reuters. According to the report, evidence had emerged suggesting that Kim Jong-un and his father, former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, obtained fraudulent Brazilian passports during the 1990s.

Reuters reported that it had reviewed photocopies of the documents, which listed Kim Jong-un under the name "Josef Pwag" and Kim Jong-il under the name "Ijong Tchoi." The report said the passports were issued by the Brazilian embassy in Prague in 1996.

A Brazilian security source told Reuters that the documents appeared to be genuine, despite the false identities. Other security officials cited in the report said the passports were used to apply for visas to travel to Western countries. However, it remained unclear whether the visas were approved or ever used.

The BBC report also noted that in 2011, Japanese media cited officials who claimed Kim Jong-un and Kim Jong-chul had travelled to Japan using Brazilian passports to visit Tokyo Disneyland as early as 1991. Another incident mentioned involved Kim Jong-un's older half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, who reportedly fell out of favour after being arrested in 2001 while attempting to enter Japan with a fake Dominican passport - also allegedly for a Disneyland visit. 

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