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 the agreement reached between American and North Korean nuclear disarmament negotiators. The bank is based in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. [NY Times]
What’s so ironic about this is that the intended destination for the unblocked funds is the North Korean government, which is has promised us all that it will use the money for strictly humanitarian and educational purposes (updates). No one really believes that the North Koreans will keep that promise, but it’s a necessary fiction to preserve the pretense that we’re not flouting UNSCR 1718, which we’ll need later, when the North Koreans stomp home for good. So apparently, Treasury invests greater confidence in the North Korean regime to spend the money than it does in McAskill’s bank.
A representative of the Daedong Credit Bank, which has about $7 million frozen in Banco Delta Asia, has told the authorities in Macao, though, that it will not accept its funds being placed under the control of North Korea or moved to the Bank of China.
According to the journalist and author Bradley Martin, the North Korean regime itself is an indirect partner in DCB through the Korea Daesong Bank. This article in the Far Eastern Economic Review, citing a senior North Korean defector, reports that Korea Daesong had at one point been controlled by Bureau 39 of the Korean Workers’ Party, whose functions include the earning of foreign exchange through criminal activity (see also this U.S. Embassy Seoul document).
Colin McAskill, who has agreed to buy Daedong Credit Bank and is representing the bank in its negotiations with the Macao authorities, warned the Monetary Authority of Macao in a letter on Wednesday that he would hold the regulator “totally responsible” and would “take whatever steps necessary” if the bank’s funds were transferred without its consent.
This couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people: Kim Jong Il, his dirty Macanese bank, his criminal financiers at Bureau 39, and some unethical foreign investors who decided to get mixed up with them financially (though they vehemently insist that everything they do is legitimate). If you want to see their side of the story, here it is. Interestingly, DCB says in that statement that it has established new correspondent banking relationships in Mongolia. I had several visits from Ulaan Baatar today, which had been googling the name “Colin McAskill.” Maybe someone will respond to my questions about the gold mines?
When the final chapter is written on the BDA episode, the most salient fact will be its deterrent effect on any bank that might have considered opening an account for a North Korean entity. If Kim Jong Il ultimately walks away with DCB and McAskill’s money, it will be a powerful deterrent for anyone else considering an investment in the Workers’ Paradise. Would Kim Jong Il would really be that stupid? Every time I’ve asked the same question before, he has.
Some anju links:
* LiNK has put up its new Web site, and it looks like it was worth the wait.
* There’s Always Google Earth: A Japanese spy satellite, launched in 2003 to watch North Korea, has been disabled by an electrical glitch.
* May both sides fight to the last man: An L.A. Times report on rising red-on-red tensions and combat between Al-Qaeda and Iraq’s Sunni rebels. You have to think that enough of this will be good for the gene pool if they fight it out harmlessly in the open desert. ht: Jules Crittenden.