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Category: Sanctions

October 23, 2012

End of Bureau 39 Wouldn’t Mean the End of N. Korea’s Criminal Enterprises

Reports last week claimed that, according to “sources familiar with North Korean affairs,” North Korea had shut down Bureau 39 of the Workers’ Party — responsible for obtaining hard currency by any means necessary, including illicit activities — and Bureau 38, responsible for managing the regime’s overseas funds. Are any of the reports true?  My default position about any “insider” reports from Pyongyang is skepticism, and a quick Google search reveals that we’ve heard many versions of this story before.  For example, Office...

Categories Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/Sanctions
May 20, 2012

Kim Jong Un Buys up Luxuries; Christine Ahn Attributes Famine, Cannibalism Reports to “Political Bias”

When North Korea tried and failed to launch its Unha-3 rocket this year, it not only chose that launch instead of a big shipment of American food aid as the price of keeping quiet until November, it also lost the six-month supply of grain it could have bought with the money it cost to build the damn thing to begin with. But it’s good to see that those choices haven’t cramped the lifestyles of any North Koreans fortunate enough to...

Categories "United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid/Sanctions/Useful Idiocy
April 30, 2012

In Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, China Helps a Few Get Richer

Who would have thought that a reporter could go to Pyongyang and bring home some news in spite of the minders? The economy of the isolated North — where famine killed hundreds of thousands in the 1990s — is widely believed to be battered and stuttering, but the luxury shops of the showcase capital tell a different story. According to expatriates living in the city, there are ever more cars on the roads and traffic in the centre is increasingly...

Categories China/Sanctions
April 11, 2012

A New Approach to North Korea: Contain, Constrict & Collapse

Sometime in the next few hours, North Korea will launch a prototype for an intercontinental ballistic missile, in flagrant violation of three U.N. Security Council resolutions. The North Koreans announced the launch two weeks after agreeing to a deal to freeze their missile and nuclear programs in exchange for U.S. food aid. It now seems they will follow their missile test with a nuclear test. Traditionally, Chinese obstructionism delays U.N. Security Council action by about three weeks after a North...

Categories Diplomacy/Missiles/Proliferation/Sanctions/Subversion/WMD
June 14, 2011

Another North Korean Vessel Intercepted, Turned Around

In an incident reminiscent of the Kang Nam I incident, a U.S. Navy ship has forced another suspected North Korean arms ship to turn around at sea, rather than face the risk of being searched in port. David Sanger of the New York Times reports: The most recent episode began after American officials tracked a North Korean cargo ship, the M/V Light, that was believed to have been involved in previous illegal shipments. Suspecting that it was carrying missile components,...

Categories "United" Nations/Anju Links/Sanctions/U.S. Military
June 1, 2011

Tapdancing to the Graveyard

If we are to believe the International Business Times — and I’ve allowed the temptation to do so overcome my better judgment — North Korea ranks itself the second-happiest nation in own global Happiness Index. I realize that reactions to this news may vary. You may be thinking that it’s an honor just to be nominated. Others will wonder which camp are the judges in now. One observer correctly notes that “[n]othing says happy like government-issued proclamations of happiness.” But...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Sanctions/WTF?
May 20, 2011

Close Kaesong, Then Pass the FTA

I’m a fan of the Heritage Foundation’s Bruce Klingner, consider him a friend, and can’t remember the last time I disagreed with him about anything, but when he writes, using unusually strong language, that the U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement won’t help North Korea, I continue to harbor doubts. First, North Korea has become adept at selling its products under false labels. Second, some South Koreans — including some who could end up governing South Korea after the 2013 elections...

Categories NK Economics/Sanctions/U.S. & Korea
February 15, 2011

The Sanctions Are Working

In April of 2009, I laid out a series of ten tough non-military options that I didn’t believe President Obama would have the spine to apply to North Korea. At the time, North Korea was about to test our new president by launching a Taepodong II missile in the general direction of Hawaii. I can’t fail to begin this article without conceding that Executive Order 13,551, signed on August 30th of this year, ought to count as full or partial...

Categories Sanctions/Uncategorized
January 24, 2011

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

The point man for the Obama administration’s financial wars on Iran, North Korea and al Qaeda, Stuart Levey, has decided to leave his senior U.S. Treasury Department post at what is turning out to be a particularly critical time. Someone wake me up now, dammit! Senior Obama administration officials disclosed Mr. Levey’s departure, after nearly a decade in government service, but stressed that it doesn’t signal a shift in U.S. policy or a slackening of Washington’s financial campaigns against Tehran,...

Categories Money Laundering
December 15, 2010

Kim Jong Il, Unplugged Again

First, I’ll just say that I have nothing to say about Eric Clapton that I didn’t say more than two years ago. We’ve already heard Eric Clapton unplugged. The economic unplugging of Kim Jong Il is a more consequential thing, one that I see as closely related to domestic discontent inside North Korea. My suspicion, though it is not yet supported by much direct evidence, is that these recent developments have reduced him to new lows of extortionate desperation. When...

Categories Defectors/NK Economics/Sanctions
November 4, 2010

Congressional Research Service: China Ignoring U.N. Sanctions on N. Korea

A Foreign Policy blog links to what looks to be a very interesting report from the Congressional Research Service (in pdf) on the effect of, and various nations’ compliance with, international sanctions against North Korea. Considerate fellow that I am, I decided to link the report so you could start reading it before I even find the time to read it myself. Not surprisingly, China’s compliance gets low marks: The report makes clear that China has almost zero interest in...

Categories China & Korea/Sanctions
October 31, 2010

Plan B Watch

Canada and Singapore have both imposed sanctions on North Korea: Singapore Customs said in a statement Friday that exports or transit of any nuclear equipment or missile materials to North Korea will be banned as of Nov. 1. Trading with North Korea of luxury goods such as cigars, plasma televisions and motorboats also will be banned. It said items no longer traded to Iran will include low-enriched uranium and military hardware such as tanks, artillery and warships. [AP] You know,...

Categories Sanctions
September 9, 2010

Hard Times for North Korean Restaurants in Asia

Via The Diplomat, the restaurants’ setbacks defy their limitless supply of morally retarded clientele: The Pyongyang eateries are known for being friendly but a little pricey and it’s unclear where exactly any profits go. Still, the ultimate destination of the cash spent in the restaurants hasn’t put customers off visiting. “˜I didn’t object to paying (what I did) for my meal, or feel that I was supporting a tyrant,’ says Don Douglas, an American NGO worker who recently ate at...

Categories Money Laundering
September 4, 2010

Pueblo Plaintiffs Hunt for North Korean Assets in Treasury’s Files

When the survivors of the U.S.S. Pueblo, joined by the widow of their captain, sued North Korea for the horrific torture they endured in 1968, the real question wasn’t whether they were entitled to compensation, it was whether they could ever collect any. North Korea, as it has done with all of the other suits against it in U.S. federal courts, refused to respond to the suit after being duly served at its U.N. mission. Consequently, the court entered a...

Categories Sanctions/U.S. Law
August 30, 2010

At Last, Plan B

This afternoon, the Treasury Department finally announced its long anticipated sanctions against North Korea, in the form of a sweeping new executive order. The order, pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, authorizes the blocking of assets of “any person” providing what Treasury calls “material support” for North Korea’s WMD proliferation, money laundering, counterfeiting, trade in luxury goods, bulk cash smuggling, and pretty much everything North Korea does that violates UNSCR 1718 or 1874, or the U.S. Criminal Code....

Categories Cheonan Incident/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/Sanctions
August 30, 2010

Plan B Watch

According to Yonhap, Treasury will roll out its new North Korea sanctions this week. I am giddy with anticipation. And on a related note, I hope the boys at Treasury are Daily NK readers (or better yet, sources): The No.39 Department, which is responsible for the management of Kim Jong Il’s private funds, holds the bank account with the British Virgin Islands branch of FirstCaribbean International Bank (FCIB), a prominent bank in the Caribbean region. According to an expert source...

Categories Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/Sanctions
August 5, 2010

Plan B Watch: Einhorn Goes to Tokyo, Pressure Builds on China

The latest reports in the Korean press tell us that the President will soon sign an over-arching executive order that will subsume the authorities of Executive Order 13,382 (see sidebars), and will also allow the blocking of assets used for proliferation, drug trafficking, and currency counterfeiting: In a press briefing on Monday, Department spokesman Philip Crowley said, “We have no doubt that North Korea has engaged directly in counterfeit operations as a means of bringing currency into the country. This...

Categories Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Crime/NK Economics/Proliferation/Sanctions
August 2, 2010

Plan B Watch: Robert Einhorn Visits Seoul; State Directs Strong Criticism at China

Robert Einhorn, President Obama’s special adviser for non-proliferation and arms control, is visiting Seoul and Tokyo this week. He is accompanied by Daniel Glaser, who works with Treasury’s Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, and who was a key architect of the Banco Delta Asia sanctions in 2005 and 2006. At the risk of making a comparison that Glaser might not necessarily welcome, his presence in Seoul has far more deterrent value than parking an aircraft carrier off the coast...

Categories Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/Sanctions