SEOUL (Reuters) - A U.S. student held in North Korea since early January was detained for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan from his Pyongyang hotel and has confessed to “severe crimes” against the state, the North’s official media said on Monday. 
 
 Otto Warmbier, 21, a University of Virginia student, was detained before boarding his flight to China over an unspecified incident at his hotel, his tour agency told Reuters in January. 
 
 North Korea has a long history of detaining foreigners and has used jailed U.S. citizens in the past to extract high-profile visits from the United States, with which it has no formal diplomatic relations. 
 
 “I committed the crime of taking out a political slogan from the staff-only area of the Yanggakdo International Hotel,” the North’s KCNA news agency quoted Warmbier as telling media in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. It did not say what the item was. 
 
 CNN showed video of a sobbing Warmbier saying: “I have made the worst mistake of my life, but please act to save me.” 
 
 Warmbier said a “deaconess” had offered him a used car worth $10,000 if he could present a U.S. church with the slogan as a “trophy” from North Korea, KCNA said. 
 
 The acquaintance also said the church would pay his mother $200,000 if he was detained by the North and did not return, KCNA quoted Warmbier as saying. 
 
 “My crime is very severe and pre-planned,” Warmbier was quoted as saying, adding that he was impressed by North Korea’s “humanitarian treatment of severe criminals like myself.” 
 
 Related Coverage White House says it is aware of U.S. student held in North Korea 
 
 The White House said on Monday it was aware of Warmbier’s situation and was working closely with Sweden, the United States’ protecting power in North Korea, to learn as much as it can about Warmbier’s detention. 
 
 “There’s no greater priority for the administration than the welfare and safety of U.S. citizens abroad,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told a daily briefing. 
 
 Warmbier’s parents have not heard from him since his arrest, according to a statement from his family provided by the University of Virginia. 
 
 “I hope the fact that he has conveyed his sincere apology for anything that he may have done wrong will now make it possible for the DPRK (North Korea) authorities to allow him to return home,” the statement said. 
 
 “I urge the DPRK government to consider his youth and make an important humanitarian gesture by allowing him to return to his loved ones.” 
 
 Other Westerners detained in North Korea previously have confessed to crimes against the state. 
 
 North Korea’s state media said in January that Warmbier “was caught committing a hostile act against the state”, which it said was “tolerated and manipulated by the U.S. government”. 
 
 The senior pastor at Friendship United Methodist Church in Wyoming, Ohio, told CNN he did not know the person identified by Warmbier in the KCNA story as a deaconess there, and said Warmbier was not a member of the congregation. 
 
 Otto Frederick Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who has been detained in North Korea since early January, attends a news conference in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo February 29, 2016. REUTERS/Kyodo 
 
 Warmbier, a member of the Theta Chi fraternity at the University of Virginia, is studying economics with a minor in global sustainability, according to his Linkedin page. Members of the fraternity were not immediately available for comment. 
 
 Warmbier was a finance and operations intern at Finishing Technology, his father’s firm, from June 2010 to August 2013, and helped run a student investment fund at the University of Virginia, according to his Linkedin profile. 
 
 He also took a class at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2015. 
 
 According to KCNA, Warmbier said he was encouraged in his act by a member of the Z Society, an elite philanthropic organization that he hoped to join at the university. 
 
 An official in the university’s communications office could not immediately be reached for comment. 
 
 Warmbier grew up in Wyoming, Ohio, northeast of Cincinnati. He attended Wyoming High School, where he was the salutatorian of his graduating class and was named student of the year, according to Linkedin. 
 
 A district spokeswoman declined to speak about his time at the school. 
 
 Warmbier was active in swimming when he was younger, according to a blog operated by a local athletic booster organization, and he volunteered as a coach for a local children’s swim team. 
 
 Warmbier, on a five-day New Year’s tour of North Korea with a group of 20, was delayed at immigration before being taken away by two airport officials, according to a tour operator that had sponsored the trip. 
 
 Slideshow (4 Images) 
 
 While most tourists to North Korea are from China, roughly 6,000 Westerners visit annually, though the United States and Canada advise against it. 
 
 Most are curious about life behind the last sliver of the iron curtain and ignore critics who say their dollars prop up a repressive regime. 
 
 Isolated North Korea is expected to face a tough new U.N. Security Council resolution tightening sanctions against it following its nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch this month. ||||| September 7, 2010 — You can't walk far on the Grounds of the University of Virginia without seeing the "7" and "Z" symbols painted on dozens of buildings, each a reminder of the secret societies of the same names, a side of U.Va. forever unknown to most who spend years here. 
 
 On Thursday evening, the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society (founded in 1825 as U.Va.'s first secret society, later shedding its secrecy) partnered with the Miller Center of Public Affairs to host an event at the Miller Center that promised to shed light on such "Secrets and Traditions of U.Va." 
 
 Secret societies have arisen at U.Va. and many other schools, usually motivated by a desire to preserve the traditions of the institution, explained Wayne Cozart, vice president for development at the U.Va. Alumni Association and executive director of the Jefferson Trust, who has worked with U.Va. students and alumni for more than 25 years. 
 
 Noting that he is not an alumnus of U.Va., and thus very unlikely to secretly be a member of one of these societies, Cozart explained to the crowd of more than 200 – including the University's new president, Teresa A. Sullivan, and her husband, law professor Douglas Laycock – that what he knew of secret societies came from observations and snippets of conversation overheard over the years. Thus, he warned, "anything I say may or may not be correct. It is a secret, after all." 
 
 The Z Society, founded in 1892, is the oldest still-secret society at U.Va. If members of the group are asked about their membership, they must leave the room rather than answer the question (or lie), a turn of events that is "quite interesting to watch," he said. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson's birthday, April 13, is best day of the year to witness an act by one of U.Va.'s several secret societies, almost all of which tend to be active on the day that best symbolizes a commitment to the university's traditions, Cozart said. 
 
 Event attendees also learned of the University's involvement with two of the major events of the past two centuries – the Civil War and World War II. 
 
 
 
 The Civil War was "an absolutely seismic event, and it had an absolutely seismic impact on University of Virginia students," history professor and Civil War expert Gary Gallagher said. More than 500 students put on Confederate uniforms out of a total student body of 630. By the 1861-62 term, fewer than 50 students remained at the University, and it was not until the 1880s that enrollment rebounded to pre-war levels, he said. 
 
 The University found itself making history during World War II, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave the commencement speech at Memorial Gymnasium on June 10, 1940, explained the University's historian, Alexander "Sandy" Gilliam. 
 
 More than 4,000 spectators packed into Memorial Gymnasium to hear Roosevelt's address, many with their feet dangling from the suspended second-story running track, Gilliam said. Gilliam then played a recording of the speech, when FDR first announced that the United States would "extend the material resources of this nation" to Britain and France in the war against Italy, a significant step toward America's participation in World War II. 
 
 Along with free pizza, students also got a taste of one of the key missions of the Miller Center. 
 
 U.Va. is the only institution in the nation attempting to transcribe and annotate the thousands of hours of secret recordings made from the presidencies of Roosevelt to Nixon, said Marc Selverstone, assistant director of presidential studies for the Miller Center. 
 
 "I'm going to play you tapes that no one was ever supposed to hear," he said. 
 
 Laughter erupted as students listened to light-hearted recordings of Lyndon B. Johnson vulgarly ordering new pants and of Nixon scolding the era's youth for their "almost hopeless immaturity" and inconceivable "softness." 
 
 Selverstone encouraged students to listen to more tapes, which can be found on the Miller Center's website. "They're a window into the White House and the chances are we will never have anything like it again," he said. 
 
 The night closed with a mock debate between two sets of University students: "Jocks" and "Nerds." 
 
 Colin Hood, president of U.Va.'s Student Council and a third-year student in the College of Arts & Sciences, represented the "Nerds," along with Emma King, Jefferson Society president and fourth-year College student. Shane Cooke, a soccer forward and second-year College student, and Chidi Uche, a track hurdler and fourth-year College student, constituted the "Jocks." The amiable debate touched on topics such as hours spent studying, the food at John Paul Jones Arena and Nike-sponsored athletic clothing. 
 
 One of the evening's best-revealed "secrets" was the Miller Center itself, said event host George Gilliam, assistant director of the Miller Center. 
 
 "The problem with the Miller Center is that no one knows where it is," he said. Many students never venture to the center for forums or speeches because of an ill-conceived notion that the building is "so far away," he said, though the center is just a short walk from a University Transit Service bus stop. 
 
 Other faculty members acknowledged that the forum was developed not only to expose students to some University history, but also to foster more interest in the Miller Center's programs. 
 
 Christa Doerwaldt, a third-year College student, said that she could not decide which part of the night was her favorite. "It would be tough to choose between the presidential quotes and the student debate," she said. 
 
 Elizabeth Sankey and Chelsea Bateman, two second-year transfer students, were more decisive. 
 
 "I really enjoyed hearing about the secret societies, even though I'm not in one," Sankey joked. 
 
 "You wouldn't be able to tell, anyways," Bateman said.
– North Korea trotted out an American college student it's held for two months Monday, and 21-year-old Otto Frederick Warmbier sobbed, bowed deeply, and pleaded for forgiveness from "every one of the millions of the Korean people." "Please! I made the worst mistake of my life," Warmbier told a press conference held "at his own request." A video obtained by CNN serves as the first glimpse of Warmbier since the alleged "hotel incident" that resulted in his detention as he was trying to leave the country. "I committed the crime of taking down a political slogan from the staff holding area of the Yanggakdo International Hotel," the University of Virginia student says. According to North Korean officials and his own statement, Warmbier's motive was much more sinister than the desire to return home with a unique souvenir. "I beg that you see how I was used and manipulated," he says, citing Z Society, the Friendship United Methodist Church of Wyoming, Ohio, and the US government as his manipulators. A North Korean official says Warmbier met with a "deaconess" of the church last year and was promised a $10,000 used car in return for sowing ideological disunity in the secretive state by taking "an important political slogan." A pastor tells CNN that Warmbier is not a member of the church. Warmbier also allegedly met with a member of Z Society, a secret philanthropic group at UVA that North Korea says is linked to the CIA, and was offered membership in exchange for completing the "mission." Reuters notes that, in the past, North Korea has used detained US citizens as leverage to get high-profile visits from the US. Warmbier's press conference comes as the UN considers new sanctions against North Korea.