Yes, North Korea is still using the dollar system to launder its money.

The Financial Action Task Force has re-issued its call for “countermeasures” against the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing emanating from North Korea. The FATF’s call is not significantly different from advisories the FATF has issued since 2011, but it is significant in one way.

More sensible Korea-watchers are accustomed to the pavlovian response of the South Korean press, and of certain American academics, whenever North Korea hints at being willing to talk. We saw this again after Kim Jong Un’s New Year speech, which was (as is traditional) so selectively overanalyzed that Kim Jong Un’s intent could not be identified from dental records. We saw it when the editors of The New York Times seized on a risible North Korean offer and called on President Obama to “test North Korea’s intentions” — it would be equally enlightening to test Dennis Rodman’s urine — as if the last 20 years have tested nothing. By my count, North Korea has conducted three underground tests of its intentions. But I digress.

We saw the same Pavlovian response in some reporters after North Korea agreed to hold talks with the FATF, and after its Central Bank issued a statement committing “to implementing the action plan of ‘international standard’ for anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism.” (As if.) Yonhap even took it seriously when Pyongyang announced that it had established its own anti-money laundering body. And here’s how the FATF dispensed with that:

Since October 2014, the DPRK sent a letter to the FATF indicating its commitment to implementing the action plan developed with the FATF.

However, the FATF remains concerned by the DPRK’s failure to address the significant deficiencies in its anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime and the serious threat this poses to the integrity of the international financial system. The FATF urges the DPRK to immediately and meaningfully address its AML/CFT deficiencies.

The FATF reaffirms its 25 February 2011 call on its members, and urges all jurisdictions, to advise their financial institutions to give special attention to business relationships and transactions with the DPRK, including DPRK companies and financial institutions. In addition to enhanced scrutiny, the FATF further calls on its members, and urges all jurisdictions, to apply effective counter-measures to protect their financial sectors from ML/FT risks emanating from the DPRK. Jurisdictions should also protect against correspondent relationships being used to bypass or evade counter-measures and risk mitigation practices, and take into account ML/FT risks when considering requests by DPRK financial institutions to open branches and subsidiaries in their jurisdiction. [FATF]

The force may have a strong influence on the weak-minded, but Pyongyang’s mind tricks haven’t influenced the FATF’s bankers. Maybe all those years of foreclosing on tearful widows and orphans have built an immunity that can, in a different context, serve mankind’s greater good. It never ceases to fascinate me how much better bankers are at diplomacy than diplomats are. A certain discipline may come with the expectation that the words in contracts are meaningful and enforceable as written. The FATF expects more than words from North Korea, and the latest draft U.N. Panel of Experts report goes far to explain why.

That is, North Korea habitually uses deceptive financial practices similar to those used by criminal organizations. Moving money this way has a higher risk premium, higher cost, slower speed, and less flexibility. North Korea wouldn’t use these cryptic, bronze-age methods unless it was hiding something. Similarly, if Pyongyang’s finances are legit, why is it using Reconnaissance General Bureau agents as bulk cash smugglers?

The U.N. report also tells us that North Korea continues to use the dollar system for those deceptive practices.

That isn’t the only report this week that King Dollar rules in Pyongyang, partially as a consequence of Pyongyang’s catastrophically self-destructive currency “reform.” An interesting report in The Daily NK tells us that North Korea’s Ministry of Railways expects payment for shipping from both its state-controlled “foreign-currency earning enterprises” and “individual vendors” in U.S. dollars. This Yonhap report quotes an anonymous source, who says that “Pyongyang has become a de-facto dollar-using economy,” although the Yuan is more popular near the Chinese border.

And here’s an example of how this works in practice:

The FATF’s warnings, of course, are merely persuasive authority; they don’t have the force of law. They are persuasive to responsible governments and banks, but North Korea finds its enablers among the world’s less responsible actors. That will not change until the U.S. Treasury Department and other regulators credibly threaten those actors with secondary sanctions. You can almost hear the Panel of Experts calling on the Treasury Department to do exactly that here, with respect to North Korean weapons smuggler/shipper Ocean Maritime Management, and others:

And what has President Obama done about any of this lately? On January 2, 2015, he signed Executive Order 13687, the actual legal effect of which was to block the assets of ten low-level arms dealers. If there is a single theme that emerges from the latest POE report, however, it is Pyongyang’s speed and deftness at whack-a-mole. I can just about guarantee you that those low-level arms dealers have been replaced by ten other low-level arms dealers. Whatever the effect of EO 13687’s original designations, they were minimal and brief.

There are several conclusions this evidence points to. First, Pyongyang is worried about sanctions. Second, its growing dependency on King Dollar gives it good reason to be. Third, it continues to use the dollar system to engage in money laundering and to violate U.N. Security Council sanctions. Fourth, the Obama Administration has yet to show that it is serious about protecting the U.S. financial system from North Korea’s money laundering, or about making U.N. sanctions work. It tells you everything you need to know that even the U.N. is (in its own subtle way) pleading for the President to enforce the law.