Counterfeiting

January 30, 2007

Wobble Watch

President George Bush has told the Treasury Department, which has been handling financial sanctions regarding North Korea, to cooperate with the State Department regarding the six-party talks, sources in Washington said. Nevertheless, the cooperation comes with a catch. Washington has said the Treasury Department should cooperate only when Pyongyang promises at the next round of the six-party talks to take measures to “disable” its Yongbyon nuclear reactor. [link] Later, the article specifies that “disable” means something irreversible that falls short...

Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks

January 29, 2007

Deceptive Headline Watch: Yonhap

You don’t get self-fisking journalism very often, but here’s one that just falls off the bone like an overcooked roast (mmm, roooast). Here’s the headline: U.S. must choose between sanctioning N.K. and compromising for denuclearization: report Well, what are we supposed to take from that, I wonder? It could only be that inexplicable American obsession with people counterfeiting its currency that’s preventing us from denuclearizing North Korea.Until you read the actual quote, which says: “Currently the (George W.) Bush administration...

Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks/WMD

January 21, 2007

Somewhere in Hell, Josef Goebbels Is Smiling: Klaus Bender’s Big Lie

Update: In my visitors’ log today: Original Post: You may recall that a few weeks back, I noted that the Korean press had picked up a story from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one that many of its readers will no doubt be eager to believe. The story reported that North Korean supernotes are actually made by the CIA at an undisclosed location near Washington, D.C. Not being much of a German linguist, I made myself a reminder to find an...

Anti-Americanism/Counterfeiting/Europe/Media Criticism

January 10, 2007

German Newspaper: Supernotes Are a CIA Plot!

Things sure have gotten strange over in the Soft Reich when a major German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allemaigne Zeitung, theorizes — in a complete evidentiary vacuum, too — that North Korean supernotes are actually a secret CIA plot run from from a printing house in the DC area (Korean link). The sole basis for this novel theory, besides the unshakeable conviction that George W. Bush must be responsible for all evil on earth, is that counterfeiting is simply too complex...

Anti-Americanism/Counterfeiting/Europe/WMD

January 9, 2007

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 17

After North Korea showed up at last month’s disarmament talks just long enough to give the United States the finger, you wouldn’t expect us to go wobbly on our financial measures against North Korea’s financing of WMD’s, counterfeit currency, and other illegal proceeds. With the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1695 and 1718, those measurements have become requirements. The good news is that we’re not going wobbly. Treasury, mainly in the physical form of Undersecretary Stuart Levey, has been...

"United" Nations/Axis of Evil/Counterfeiting/Iran/Money Laundering/NK Economics/WMD

December 20, 2006

OFK Exclusive: N. Korea to Charge Crafty Yodok Inmates With Running International Counterfeiting Ring

The U.S. has said the question of North Korea’s frozen accounts in the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia could be resolved early if North Korea punishes counterfeiters of U.S. dollars and destroys their equipment. [link] Firing squads and bloody handshakes to follow, and my sources tell me there may even be a ceremonial steamrolling of the HP Laserjet that was the center of this dastardly plan. I dare you to figure out where the satire ends and the “news” begins: Ever...

Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks

November 20, 2006

Wobble Watch: Has China Unfrozen Blocked North Korean Accounts?

The State Department is saying it doesn’t know if the reports are true; it’s telling reporters to ask the Chinese: A diplomatic source in Beijing said China has released some of the North Korean money at Macau’s Banco Delta Asia (BDA), frozen after the U.S. Treasury in September last year designated it a primary money laundering concern abetting Pyongyang’s illicit activities. The unfrozen accounts, less than half of the US$24 million initially held up, are believed to be those not...

China/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering

November 5, 2006

Wobble Watch: Treasury Won’t Lift Sanctions on Kim Jong Il’s Macau Accounts

New press reports link the bank accounts that mean so much to Kim Jong Il with his nuclear and other WMD programs. North Korea used its accounts at a Macau-based bank, suspected of having served as a base for the North’s alleged illicit activities, to pay for devices that could be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons, a Japanese daily reported Saturday. Quoting unidentified sources, Yomiuri Shimbun said China froze North Korean accounts worth US$24 million...

Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views/WMD

November 3, 2006

Someone Please Staple Kim Geun-Tae’s Lips Together

This is an act that damages our national pride and is not appropriate for the South Korea-U.S. alliance.” — Kim Geun Tae, head of S. Korea’s ruling party and North Korea’s favorite dancing piggy, on hearing that the United States actually intends to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718. When I worried aloud that the United States would ease sanctions on North Korea during the pendency of the next round of endless, pointless six-party extortion denuclearization talks, I based my...

An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Unintended Humor/WMD/WTF?

November 2, 2006

North Korea Wants Its Drug Money Back

[Update: A senior Korean official suggests that the U.S. will do just that right after the talks resume. Scroll down.] [Update 2: The Washington Post post also suspects that North Korea’s announcement is merely an effort to foil the American economic pressure: We hope Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill, who conducted lengthy talks with his North Korean counterpart in recent days, is justified in expecting “substantial progress” from the new round. But history suggests that both North Korea...

"United" Nations/Counterfeiting/Drugs & N Korea/Famine & Food Aid/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks

October 31, 2006

N. Korea Agrees to Return to Six-Party Talks

[Update: According to this Korean language link, the South Koreans were the last of the six parties to know that the talks would begin again. You’d think that after getting seven billion dollars from South Korean taxpayers, they’d have enough left over to afford a phone call. I guess they spent it somewhere else.] News coming off the wires claims that the North Koreans have agreed to return to six-party talks. Chinese, U.S. and North Korean envoys to the...

China & Korea/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks

October 26, 2006

Annual Treasury Report on Counterfeiting of U.S. Currency Abroad

The full report is here, but it’s a big, fat, nasty pdf. Here’s the section on North Korea: 6.5.7 North Korea and the Supernote Since 1989, the U.S. Secret Service has led a counterfeit investigation involving the trafficking and production of highly deceptive counterfeit notes known as supernotes. The supernote investigation has been an ongoing strategic case with national security implications for the U.S. Secret Service since the note’s first detection in 1989. The U.S. Secret Service has determined through...

Counterfeiting/Money Laundering

October 15, 2006

U.N.S.C.R. 1718: Who Won, Who Lost (Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 13)

John Bolton: Winner. I’d like to hear John Bolton’s critics deny that, as with Resolution 1695, he has wrung far more effectiveness from the U.N. than we had come to expect. Not only should we confirm this man, pronto, we should clone him. Madeleine Albright never got results like these. The United States: Winner. We got everything we really wanted here: help constricting Kim Jong Il’s financial arteries the right to search his ships and planes. an embargo on the...

"United" Nations/Appeasement/China & Korea/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Geopolitics/Japan/Japan & Korea/Money Laundering/U.S. & Korea/WMD

October 11, 2006

The Sunshine Policy Is Dead, Part 3

Like the captain of a sinking ship herding rats back into the hold, Kim Dae Jung is desperately trying to preserve a policy that was his dubious legacy. Without Sunshine, there is only bribery and a tarnished hunk of metal. Kim, predictably, apportions blame equally between North Korea and the United States. Honestly, there is just no pleasing some people. We’ve offered the North Koreans far too much for far too long. If DJ really thinks the North Koreans have...

An Alliance?/Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/U.S. & Korea/WMD

September 28, 2006

Greeks Intercept Counterfeit N.K. Cigarettes

Officials in Greece nabbed a North Korean freight vessel that was carrying 1.5 million cartons of contraband cigarettes and arrested the seven seamen aboard, it was announced Monday. [link] Let’s hope there’s a trial, and that this one won’t be a goose egg like the Pong Su case was. Whether the Aegean could use another artificial reef, I leave to the Greeks, but Greece is always happy to do the exact opposite of what America asks. The Greek Merchant Marine...

Counterfeiting/Money Laundering

September 5, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 8

Nigel Cowie, North Korea’s most “legitimate” banker, is selling out, and this time, that’s not just a moral judgment. Richardson links this piece, written by none other than Bradley K. Martin, indicating that he’s selling his Daedong Credit Bank to the British-based Koryo Group, but will stay on to help manage the bank. As for the issue of Daedong’s much-proclaimed legitimacy, Martin adds what strikes me as a highly salient fact: The minority owner of Daedong Credit is Korea Daesong...

Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Drugs & N Korea/Money Laundering/NK Economics/WMD

September 4, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 7 (Updated)

[Update: My closing comment below about an expansion of our goals was an understatement: The U.S. Treasury Department, in a shift in its policy toward North Korea, has decided to treat all transactions involving the nation as suspect and subject to sanctions while dictator Kim Jong Il develops nuclear weapons. “Given the regime’s counterfeiting of U.S. currency, narcotics trafficking and use of accounts worldwide to conduct proliferation-related transactions, the line between illicit and licit North Korean money is nearly invisible,”...

Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Economics

August 29, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 6

From the AP: The financial noose is tightening around North Korea as international banks sever ties with the nation – a move championed by the United States, a top Treasury Department official says. [….] “There is sort of a voluntary coalition of financial institutions saying that they don’t want to handle this business anymore and that is causing financial isolation for the government of North Korea,” Stuart Levey, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in an...

Counterfeiting/Drugs & N Korea/Money Laundering/NK Economics

Category: Counterfeiting