A group of North Korean hackers working on a China-based illegal online gambling site have been arrested following a failed attempt to defect.

On Thursday, NKNews.org quoted a South Korean missionary who works on human rights issues saying 12 North Korean hackers, along with their administrator and an official from North Korea’s Ministry of State Security, had attempted to defect in Changchun in China’s northeast Jillin province earlier this month.

The pastor claimed to have learned of the defection from a South Korean businessman linked to a Chinese national with whom the hackers were working on an illegal online gambling site. When the Chinese national learned of the defection attempt, he alerted Chinese authorities, who arrested all 14 North Koreans before they could make it to a foreign embassy.

Other Korean media outlets quoted anonymous individuals claiming that the hackers were supplying South Korean gangs with online gambling software. These illegal gambling operations reportedly had servers based in Cambodia, where other North Korean gambling operations have been rumbled in recent years.