Home  >  Sanctions  >  Counterfeiting

Category: Counterfeiting

June 28, 2009

A North Korean Connection to Those Counterfeit Bonds?

It’s very short on specifics, but it’s the first published report affirmatively linking those fake bonds to North Korea: An Italian newspaper reports a recent mysterious case involving US$134.5 billion worth of counterfeit bonds has a North Korea connection. Earlier this month two Japanese nationals were caught in Italy allegedly trying to smuggle the bonds into Switzerland. Il Messaggero says the fake bonds may have been manufactured in North Korea since the two men are North Korean agents and are...

Categories Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Crime/Sanctions
June 18, 2009

Breaking News: Treasury Issues Money Laundering Alert Against North Korea

This is going to be a big deal.  By the time I have time to update this post, the world financial system will have started purging itself of its links to North Korea.  More later. Update:   Call it Plan B light, and quite possibly a prelude to better things, but this by itself will have a significant effect. Why, you ask?  After all, this alert doesn’t freeze anything.  It’s merely a warning: The U.N. Security Council’s adoption of specific...

Categories Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Sanctions
June 5, 2009

Obama Gears Up for “Plan B;” John Kerry Blocks Terror Re-Listing

I really don’t know what to make of this.  A young, inexperienced president, one whom the North Koreans arguably endorsed, comes into office showing every sign of being easier meat than Lance Bass in Riker’s Island.  The North Koreans, true to Joe Biden’s prophetic gaffe, and with their exquisite sensitivity to American weakness, don’t even let the man get inaugurated before they begin the noisy repudiation of every agreed framework, U.N. resolution, and armistice they can stuff into a shredder....

Categories "United" Nations/China/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Crime/NK Economics/Proliferation/Sanctions/U.S. Politics
June 3, 2009

Must Read: New Details Leaked on North Korea’s Counterfeiting

Say it with me: thank goodness Christopher Hill got the North Koreans promise never, ever to counterfeit our currency ever again — cross my heart and hope to be executed before a crowd of bused-in schoolchildren! A North Korean general who is a confidant of the country’s leader, Kim Jong-il, has been identified by U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies as a key figure in the covert production and distribution of high-quality counterfeit $100 bills called supernotes, according to documents and...

Categories Counterfeiting/Kremlinology/Media Criticism/Money Laundering/Sanctions
April 2, 2008

Treasury: North Korea Still Counterfeiting, Still a Financial Pariah

The State Department and Bill Richardson  may harbor illusions to the contrary, but Stuart Levey, Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence may be only man in Washington with real influence  over Pyongyang.  Yesterday, Levey  appeared before the Senate Finance Committee to testify.  A reader (thank you) forwarded me a copy of his testimony, and I excerpt the North Korea portion for you here.  The key points  here are that (a) North Korea continues to be an international financial...

Categories Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Crime
January 25, 2008

Kevin G. Hall’s Counterfeit Journalism (Updated)

[Update 28 Jan 08:   I’m going to keep flogging this story until I’ve corrected the record.  A reader (thank you)  directs me to this Bloomberg story by none other than Bradley K. Martin and Hideko Takayama.  This one is second only to Steven Mihm’s  for  the quality of its  investigative reporting.  If you’ve read Martin’s book, you’ll  already know  that he’s no neocon collapsist, to say the least.    Takayama and Martin interviewed Yoshihide Matsumura, “whose Matsumura Technology Co....

Categories Counterfeiting/Media Criticism/Money Laundering
June 12, 2007

Republicans Rebel on N. Korea Policy, Demand GAO Money Laundering Inquiry

You may recall that in this post and in this piece for Front Page Magazine, I suggested that our own State Deparment’s attempts to return $25 million to the North Korean regime — much or most of it proceeds of crime — could violate U.S. money laundering laws, as well as two U.N. resolutions the United States successfully lobbied for less than a year ago.  As it turns out, great minds think alike. Now, with Russia about to step up...

Categories Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/U.S. Politics
April 12, 2007

Law Enforcement Will Be Compromised

Correction: I subsequently found the transcript for the February 27, 2007 hearing, and Chris Hill did not say, quote, “Law enforcement will not be compromised.” On reading the full quote, you’ll probably agree that Hill found another way of saying the same thing; however, I regret the error, which was no doubt due to me scribbling notes of the hearing by hand, and transposing Rep. Royce’s question with Hill’s answer. Here’s the correct quote from Hill: Ambassador HILL. Mr. Congressman,...

Categories Appeasement/China & Korea/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering
March 27, 2007

Colin McAskill Threatens to Sue Over Release of Funds to DPRK Gov’t

McAskill, the man who sells Kim Jong Il’s gold and  who recently bought  the  bank through which most of North Korea’s European investment is channeled, has heretofore been  a strident and articulate advocate of releasing the  $25 million  frozen in BDA.  Overnight, he has become the main obstacle: In two letters sent to the Monetary Authority of Macao, [Daedong Credit Bank] has said that it will take legal action if any of its frozen funds are moved in accordance with...

Categories Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks/WTF?
March 22, 2007

So Much for ‘Peace in Our Time’

[Sorry for the earlier comments glitch; please e-mail me if you have problems.]   OK, now the diplos have flown home.  Talks on halting North Korea’s nuclear program broke down abruptly on Thursday with the country’s chief nuclear envoy flying home after a dispute over money frozen in a Macau bank could not be resolved. Kim Kye Gwan flew out of Beijing after refusing to take part in six-party talks to push forward a February agreement calling for North Korea...

Categories "United" Nations/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering/Russia & Korea/Six-Party Talks/WMD
March 20, 2007

N. Korea Boycotts Talks Over Funny Money Proceeds

[Talks stall; See updates below] BEIJING – International talks on North Korea’s nuclear program stalled again Tuesday, with Pyongyang refusing to take part until it receives $25 million from a bank blacklisted by the United States, Japan’s chief envoy said. Kenichiro Sasae said a meeting scheduled for Tuesday afternoon between the chief delegates of the six nations involved in the disarmament talks was canceled because Pyongyang refused to attend. “There was no progress at all today,” Sasae said. “China as...

Categories Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks/WMD
March 18, 2007

Ill-Gotten Gains: Who Still Remembers Resolution 1718?

[Scroll down for updates.] (d) all Member States shall, in accordance with their respective legal processes, freeze immediately the funds, other financial assets and economic resources which are on their territories at the date of the adoption of this resolution or at any time thereafter, that are owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by the persons or entities designated by the Committee or by the Security Council as being engaged in or providing support for, including through other illicit means,...

Categories "United" Nations/An Alliance?/Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks/WMD
March 16, 2007

N. Koreans May Have Given U.N. Counterfeit $100 Bills

[A]  new twist now emerging in the Cash-for-Kim scandal is that while the UNDP has been giving Kim real money, Kim’s regime may have been handing over counterfeit banknotes to the UNDP–which apparently had a stack of counterfeit $100 bills sitting in its office-safe in Pyongyang.  [National Review] We owe this revelation to — who else? — Claudia Rosett.

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Economics/WTF?
March 13, 2007

Breaking the Bank in Macau

[Updates: You can read Treasury’s final rule here. Start on page 14 to read just what Banco Delta failed to do to Treasury’s satisfaction. The message for North Korea’s other bankers out there is clear: ask obvious questions. Among BDA’s practices, according to the rule, was to provide a discount for a “high-risk North Korean-related bulk currency depositor” they either knew, or should have known, was laundering money. BDA obfuscated about reforms, failed to change its corrupt management, and didn’t...

Categories China/Counterfeiting/Democracy/Money Laundering
March 13, 2007

The Worst Friend, The Best Enemy

[Update:   My worst fears are coming true.  Now the  opposition Grand National Party  is trying to soften up its North Korea policy as it braces for a summit visit from Kim Jong Il and a presidential election this year.  One possible effect is that the GNP’s own perpetual appeaser, Sohn Hak-Kyu, could become the new flavor of the month.] One of the disadvantages of appeasing North Korea is that the North Koreans are so despised and distrusted, you can...

Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Geopolitics/Money Laundering
March 9, 2007

Peace in Our Time! Financial Edition

North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator Kim Kye Gwan said Thursday that Pyongyang’s decision to halt nuclear facilities, as outlined in initial steps included in the Feb. 13 six-way agreement, will depend on the U.S. lifting of financial sanctions against North Korea.  [Kyodo News; ht Richardson] The U.S. negotiator at the six-party talks, Chris Hill, once said that “[l]ife is too short to overreact to every statement coming out of Pyongyang.”  It’s true that the North Koreans do more than their...

Categories "United" Nations/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Google Earth/Money Laundering/Terrorism (NK)/WMD
February 11, 2007

¿Plata o Plomo?

That title, btw, is a  tip of my  sombrero to my many  Spanish readers today.  As I write, the latest efforts to talk North Korea out of its nukes appear to be making exactly as much progress as they’ve made for the last 15 years.  It’s at least comforting to see our government  moving forward with  other options.  Most of those come in the forms of long-overdue appropriations for  budget authorizations from the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004:...

Categories Counterfeiting/Deprogramming/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Refugees