Prosecutors said Monday they have indicted a North Korean female on charges of violating South Korea's National Security Law, in the latest spy case in South Korea.

   The agent of the North's State Security Ministry entered South Korea last year by disguising herself as a North Korean defector, according to prosecutors.

   The 45-year-old suspect circulated some US$570,000 in counterfeit US$100 bills in Beijing and the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang in recent years, which earned her two promotions and a medal, prosecutors said.

   Prosecutors said the fake U.S. currencies were made in North Korea, which has long been accused of being involved in counterfeiting $100 bills.

   In China, she ran a private lodging house for mostly South Korean students to make money and obtain information on South Korea, prosecutors said.

   She also lured a Korean-American, who is presumed to be an official of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, to come to China around 2003 by posing as the Korean-American's relative from North Korea.

   The suspect spied on the Korean-American for about five months in China, prosecutors said, without giving details about the Korean-American.

   The case is the latest reminder North Korea still tries to infiltrate spies into the South, home to more than 23,500 North Korean defectors. South Korea accepts any North Korean defectors who want to settle in the South.

   In recent years, South Korea has arrested other North Korean spies who came to South Korea posing as defectors.

   In November, a male North Korean spy was caught impersonating a defector. He did not engage in any actual spying because he was arrested during a routine investigation of newly arrived defectors, according to investigators.  (Yonhap News)