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...

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...

"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:...

Counterfeiting/Deprogramming/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Refugees

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 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 7, 2006

S. Korean Defense of Kaesong Raises More Questions Than Answers

Last spring, the U.S. Special Envoy on Human Rights in North Korea and some NGO’s first raised concerns about the rights of workers at North Korea’s Kaesong Industrial Park, which hosts just over a dozen South Korean factories. The Unification Ministry initially tried to allay those concerns by bringing journalists and some foreign dignitaries up to Kaesong for guided tours. This did not work as planned. The U.S. Ambassador wandered around and snapped pictures of all the U.S.-made machine tools that...

Appeasement/Money Laundering/WMD

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

Where Is That Other Shoe?

[Update: A State Department official who asked not to be identified said the sanctions authority, bearing the name of Senator John Glenn, who sponsored it in the Congress, is open-ended in the range of sanctions available. That official predicted that all financial and economic transactions with North Korea would be ended, except for humanitarian aid. ] We’ve all been waiting for othe other shoe to drop — for the U.S. to announce what sanctions it will impose — since North...

Diplomacy/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views/WMD

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 24, 2006

Proliferation Security Watch

* Hong Kong authorities have detained a North Korean ship “Kang Nam I, a 2,035-ton general cargo ship,” which had arrived from Shanghai. North Korean crew members and Hong Kong customs officials suggest that the inspection is related to a couple dozen safety violations, that the ship is empty, and that the inspections are not related to U.N.S.C.R. 1718. Crew members claim that the ship will sail again in two days. The Chosun Ilbo reports that the search didn’t...

"United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Geopolitics/Money Laundering/Technology/Uncategorized/WMD

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 12, 2006

MUST-READ: Key U.S. Policy-Maker Calls China Out for Double-Dealing

David Asher, who recently led the Illicit Activities Initiative, is probably the architect of our tough new financial strategy against North Korea’s counterfeiting, smuggling, and money laundering. He is also one of Washington’s clearest thinkers on North Korea. Asher didn’t know that North Korea would actually test a nuke when he delivered this address to the Heritage Foundation in September, and really, it deserved more media and blog attention than it got. Asher, to say the least, doesn’t think China...

China/China & Korea/Money Laundering/Washington Views/WMD

Category: Money Laundering