More North Korean Diplomats Busted for Smuggling

Not a day goes by that I don’t rue all of the commerce we’re missing out on by not having diplomatic relations with North Korea:

Swedish police have arrested two North Korean diplomats on suspicion of smuggling 230,000 cigarettes into the Nordic country, the Swedish Customs Office said Friday. The pair, a man and a woman who have diplomatic status in Russia, were stopped by Swedish customs officers Wednesday morning as they drove off a ferry from Helsinki, the Finnish capital. Customs officials discovered Russian cigarettes in the car driven by the couple, Swedish Customs spokeswoman Monica Magnusson told Reuters. [Reuters]

They always travel in pairs, you know. Lucky for them, they had an almost completely flawless back-up plan:

The two North Koreans claimed diplomatic immunity.

“They were accredited as diplomats in Russia, but had no accreditation in Sweden,” she said. “They were arrested on suspicion of smuggling.”

Magnusson added that the pair were still being held by Swedish police and that she was not aware of them having any contact with North Korean officials since their arrest. Sweden’s Foreign Ministry said it had been informed of the arrests but would not comment directly on the matter, saying it was a criminal case and was being handled by the police.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Cecilia Julin said foreign diplomats are only immune from criminal prosecution in countries where they have been accredited with the authorities. “If you come to Sweden and commit a crime, you’re just like any other foreign national,” she said.

What? You mean someone is proposing to apply the same standards to North Korea that they apply to other countries? Such brigandish hooliganism cannot stand!

Sweden is one of only seven countries to have an embassy in North Korea, treated by much of the world as a rogue state due to human rights abuses and its possession of nuclear weapons despite opposition by the international community.

North Korea is believed to derive a substantial amount of its foreign exchange from tobacco smuggling, although estimates of the amounts vary widely. Cigarettes are one of the milder commodities in which North Korean diplomats routinely traffic. They’ve also been caught smuggling dope, cash, gold, and just about every foul substance you can imagine:

Authorities in numerous countries have stopped North Korean diplomats from smuggling vehicles, alcohol, fake antiques, electronic goods, weapons, and more. Other reports deeply implicate officials in the endangered-species trade. Since 1996, at least six North Korean diplomats have been forced to leave Africa after attempts to smuggle elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns. Such efforts seem partly driven by the dismal funding of North Korea’s embassies. Lacking cash, North Korea closed at least 14 embassies last year and reportedly told those remaining to become “self-sufficient.” Still other diplomatic smuggling incidents involve cigarettes, allegedly sold tax free on the black market, and pirated CDs. Two diplomats crossing into Romania from Bulgaria last year were found to have crammed 12,000 bootleg CDs in the trunk of their car. [U.S. News, Feb. 7, 1999]

This 2007 Congressional Research Service report states that at that time, there had been 50 documented incidents in which North Korean diplomats were caught smuggling illegal drugs in 20 different countries. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

It’s enough to make you wonder what else they’ve carried without getting caught.