Former basketball star Dennis Rodman claims he secured release of Kenneth Bae from North Korea

Dennis Rodman threatened to stop basketball trips to North Korea if the People’s Republic didn’t release Kenneth Bae, a letter dated in January and obtained by TMZ shows. Nearly a year later, Bae and Michael Miller are returning to the U.S. after being released from their labor camp sentence. Dennis Rodman is taking credit for the sudden release of imprisoned American citizen Kenneth Bae from a North Korean labor camp.

The former Chicago Bulls basketball player pleaded with Kim Jong Un to release the missionary in a groveling letter dated two weeks after Rodman returned to U.S. soil from his fourth trek to North Korea.

“I write to you saddened because as you know my trips to the (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) have provided a lot of problems for me and for my career,” wrote Rodman in a letter obtained by TMZ. “I would like to come back ... to discuss the possible release of the American citizen, Kenneth Bae.”

The 53-year-old player visited Korea “for fun, not politics” in late 2013. He spent four days training the isolated country’s national basketball team and stayed at the Masikryong Ski Resort with the “most beautiful” slopes he’d ever seen, Rodman wrote in the Jan. 23 letter.