By 1967, the North Korean leadership concluded that Park's domestic opposition no longer constituted a serious challenge to his rule due to his authoritarianism and success in the presidential and legislative elections that year.

The specially recruited men of Unit 124 received two years of rigorous training for the operation to cross into South Korea and reach and kill Park, including two weeks of rehearsing action on the objective in a full-scale mockup of the Blue House.

On 19 January, Unit 124 crossed the Imjin River and marched undetected through rural Gyeonggi towards Seoul until the early afternoon when they encountered four civilians near Beopwon, a village 7 kilometers east of Paju, who immediately reported them to the local police.

Unit 124, aware that security forces in Seoul were alerted to their presence, changed into uniforms of the local ROKA 26th Infantry Division and broke into groups of 2 to 3 men.

[2] Although Unit 124 was believed to have been disbanded after the raid, it has been succeeded by the KPA's Special Battalions, part of the Reconnaissance Agency, formed to conduct intelligence gathering, espionage, terrorism and abduction operations in South Korea.