A Crime Syndicate With a Seat at the U.N.

Wasn’t it only yesterday when the Japanese caught a North freighter smuggling in amphetamines? Now look:

During the last two years, Japanese maritime police officers have frequently caught foreign ships leaving North Korean ports trying to smuggle fake cigarettes, the Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun reported.
Citing intelligence data from satellites, the newspaper said that the fake cigarettes were at times transferred onto other ships waiting in the South Korean port of Busan or near Taiwanese waters. The foreign ships were from Cambodia, Mongolia and Taiwan.

The top cigarette brand forged by North Korea was the American Marlboro. Japanese brands, such as Mild Seven and Seven Star, as well as British tobacco brands were also included in the list.

The Japanese newspaper said in its report over the weekend that North Korean manufactured cigarettes use high-quality wrapping paper, while the tobacco leaves used in the forged cigarettes are inferior to the genuine products.

Maddeningly, the Japanese didn’t seize the cargoes, as they weren’t bound for Japan. There’s more info on North Korea’s fake cigarette smugging here. I even debated former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg about the issue, in a BBC pilot that I’m told never aired. Gregg ducked the issue.