Law Enforcement Will Be Compromised, Part 2
Law enforcement will not be compromised.
[Update: Welcome Wall Street Journal readers.]
The latest refutation of this whopper of diplomatic mendacity is an extensive new investigative report on North Korea’s criminal enterprises from Time (thanks to a reader for forwarding). The report suggests that our State Department’s incomprehensible decision to return $25 million of Kim Jong Il’s criminally derived funds, now under GAO investigation as a possible violation of our own money laundering laws, has reprieved a beleagured criminal enterprise run directly by the North Korean government out of a well-guarded building in downtown Pyongyang. New readers and seasoned North Korea-watchers alike will find much of interest in it, including a few things to keep you awake when you’re not worrying about al-Qaeda “chatter:”
According to [former Illicit Activities Initiative head David] Asher, the big worry among U.S. and Asian intelligence officials is that “the [North]’s growing ties to organized-crime groups and illicit shipping networks could be used to facilitate weapons-of-mass-destruction shipments.” Later this year, the U.S. is expected to go to trial in New Jersey on a case targeting alleged members of a Chinese organized-crime gang accused of moving counterfeit currency, illegal narcotics and contraband cigarettes from North Korea into the U.S.–in addition to at least $1 million in illegal weapons such as pistols, machine guns and rocket launchers. The question that worries officials from Washington to Tokyo to Seoul is, Asher says, “What could be next?” [Time, Bill Powell and Adam Zagorin]
You may recall the dramatic arrests in August 2005 that are leading to this trial. Time also interviews defectors who worked on North Korean government poppy plantations used to grow opium.
According to several defectors who say they were involved in the narcotics trade, government trucks transport the opium harvested in North Hamgyong province to a factory outside Pyongyang run by Raemong Pharmaceuticals, a government-owned firm. A North Korean defector who claims he was a key middleman in the narcotics business alleges that Raemong is mainly a normal drug company. But, he says, it also converts opium into heroin headed abroad.
North Korea has used several methods to get its drugs to market. According to Asher and other diplomats, those methods include having its diplomats carry drugs like crystal meth in their luggage as they head for overseas posts. (Asher says North Korea requires that its missions abroad be self-financing, meaning they need to earn enough money to stay afloat without help from Pyongyang.) In the case of heroin, say sources in law enforcement and intelligence, more traditional methods are typically used. Ships flying international flags head for nearby ports–in particular, Vladivostok in Russia’s far east and Hong Kong–where organized-crime groups take over. A former senior law-enforcement source in Russia says the criminal groups “do business with agents of the North Korean government just as they would with any other criminal gang.”
Eventually, Japan ran out of patience with North Korea’s dope-dealing, but now, North Korean drugs are hitting Chinese streets, and the article points to indications that China’s patience is wearing thin, too. The idea of deliberately profiting from the poisoning of “outsiders” reminds you of the racist ethic of Don Corleone, who approved of selling drugs as long as the goombas only sold them to blacks. Unfortunately and inevitably, some North Koreans have also become addicted, as I’ve noted previously.
You can see an aerial image of one of those poppy fields here — it’s in a forced labor camp that holds tens of thousands of men, women, and children. It’s yet another illustration of why North Korea’s human rights atrocities and lesser crimes are inseparable from our own national security interests. It’s more than a matter of simple vertical integration. All rely on a common criminal state of mind, and all require complete secrecy. That secrecy could not coexist with even a minimally effective inspection or verification regime, and any agreement with North Korea that lacks effective inspection and verification rights is patently worthless.
There’s also much interesting information about North Korea’s cigarette counterfeiting and smuggling, estimated to be one of North Korea’s largest sources of income. One major transshipment hub turn turns out to be Subic Bay in the Philippines, the former home of a U.S. Navy base and many infamous, barely remembered acts performed while on shore-leave. This story tends to evoke less public interest because nobody likes tobacco companies, but consider how much North Korea must be learning about how to smuggle other things through U.S. ports.
Now that America aborted a highly successful effort to cut the tentacles of this network, crime is back to being good business for North Korea and its co-conspirators. According to David Asher, “Given that North Korea and its élite need hard currency, we can expect them to continue criminal activity to earn that money. The major problems associated with it will almost certainly continue.” The article doesn’t end on very optimistic note, either:
[R]ight now the U.S. appears focused on getting a nuclear deal out of Pyongyang, no matter what sort of activities it might have to overlook in the process. For Kim and his cronies in Bureau 39, that means business is only going to get better.
So just who does Chris Hill think he’s fooling, besides the members of Congress he lied to?
Some Anju Links:
* Life Imitates “Team America” Again: If North Korea finally lets in IAEA inspectors, it looks like they’ll all be confined to Yongbyon and the associated facilities nearby.
* Our Latest Faint Hope: If North Korea really does open a large new English-language university, connect it to the internet, and allow it to have student exchanges with other countries, it could lead to dramatic changes in North Korean society. That’s why it won’t happen as long as Kim Jong Il is alive.
* Speaking of Faint Hopes and Other Things: Recent photos of Kim Jong Il show that he’s lost weight and hair [ht: Richardson].
* Four North Korean refugees have jumped the wall into the Danish Embassy in Hanoi [GI Korea].
* Used Japanese cars and other goods continue to trickle into North Korea, despite earlier reports that they would be banned. So view this report that North Korea has banned noraebang (karaoke) with skepticism. When Kim Jong Il gets over his hangover, it may be forgotten.