North Korea urgently called back key representatives of overseas trading companies in charge of raising foreign currency for the regime and confiscated their U.S. dollar holdings.

North Korean officials are taking increasingly drastic measures after last month's summit with the U.S. in Hanoi collapsed without achieving the easing of sanctions they had apparently been gambling on.

The National Intelligence Service here told lawmakers on Friday that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered the Foreign Ministry to appeal to international organizations that the North is suffering a severe food shortage. Some experts estimate that the North's foreign-currency and food and oil reserves are not enough to last even a year.

The regime "ordered the heads of its overseas trading companies two weeks ago to return to Pyongyang by March 25," a source said. "It punished some of them to warn others against corruption and extort loyalty money in return for being let off."

They paid US$50,000-100,000 each from wherever they could find it, according to the source.