Search Results for: forfeit

May 31, 2010

Robert Einhorn to Lead North Korea Sanctions Implementation Effort

The Joongang Ilbo is reporting that Clinton Administration alumnus and counter-proliferation expert Robert Einhorn is going to be put in charge of “streamlining the process by which it implements” international sanctions against North Korea, sanctions that are likely to be enhanced after an international investigation found that North Korea torpedoed and sank the South Korean warship Cheonan. “The U.S. administration was seeking more efficient management of implementation of sanctions, which had been divided between the State and the Treasury departments,”...

Categories Cheonan Incident/China & Korea/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/Sanctions/U.S. Law/Washington Views
January 8, 2010

The Indictments Are Coming! The Indictments Are Coming!

Why do I blog? Because of stories like this: U.S. authorities plan to indict a New Zealand company allegedly involved in selling North Korean arms to Iran, sources linked to the investigation say. They are trying to track down shadowy figures using a labyrinth of thousands of Auckland companies registered to an office on Queen Street, Auckland’s main street. [Sydney Morning Herald] The significance of indicting the company is that the feds will probably tack on some criminal forfeiture counts,...

Categories Axis of Evil/Iran/Missiles/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions/U.S. Law
July 20, 2009

Sanctions Upates

The big headline this week is the U.N.’s agreement on a list of entities to be sanctioned under UNSCR 1718 and 1874 (see links on my sidebar for the texts).  Frankly, I think that’s a story that’s getting a great deal more attention than it merits.  The sanctioned entities have largely been sanctioned under Executive Order 13,382 for years.  I doubt that the U.N. imprimatur is going to fend off many of North Korea’s WMD clients that the Treasury Department’s...

Categories "United" Nations/Axis of Evil/China/Missiles/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD
July 8, 2009

High-Level Defector Describes Regime’s Illicit Income

I’d previously mentioned that I recently had the opportunity to meet Kim Kwang Jin, a high-level North Korean defector with detailed knowledge of North Korea’s illicit financing and money laundering.  Now, Kim adds much to our understanding of how North Korea pays for all those Mercedes-Benzes and missiles.  Having guessed that most of the cash came from flipping houses and the inventing some of the novel kitchen applicances I’d seen Billy Mays selling on my TV, this was a cruel...

Categories Deprogramming/Money Laundering/NK Military/North Korea/Refugees/Regime Change/Religion/Uncategorized
June 29, 2009

Obama Forms Team Plan B

The Washington Post is reporting that President Obama is forming an inter-agency team, much like the Illicit Activities Initiative that David Asher headed in G.W. Bush’s first term, to coordinate sanctions against North Korea: The White House is forming an interagency team to coordinate sanctions efforts against North Korea with other nations, senior administration officials said yesterday.  The team will be led by Philip S. Goldberg, a former ambassador to Bolivia who is slated to leave for China in the...

Categories Diplomacy/Money Laundering/Sanctions/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
December 18, 2008

Of Fools and Their Money

When North Korea first started ejecting South Koreans from Kaesong, I noted that the Kaesong project was already economically marginal and falling well short of its ambitious goals. I also predicted that the North Korean move would be fatal to the project’s efforts to coax cowardly capital into a potential war zone controlled by the world’s most opaque, least capital-friendly regime. That prediction has already come true. The leftist Hankyoreh is reporting that South Korean companies are fleeing for the...

Categories NK Economics
March 17, 2008

Anju Links for 17 March 2008

CONDI RICE, COMMENTING ON THE FAILURE of the bilateral nuclear talks in Switzerland last week, confirms that “substantive differences remain” with North Korea, and that “she does not expect any immediate breakthrough.” Not even Chris Hill can deny it: Top U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill indicated Sunday that North Korea has, for now, responded unfavorably to U.S. proposals he presented to his North Korean counterpart to resolve a snag in the six-party process for denuclearizing the country. But the U.S....

Categories Uncategorized
January 22, 2008

Plan B: How to Disarm Kim Jong Il Without Bombing Him

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. — Albert Einstein Plan A, gentle diplomacy, has again failed to disarm Kim Jong Il. Whenever this happens (every time it’s tried) advocates of doing the same thing over and over again fall back on The False Choice, whether expressly or by implication: it’s their way or war. They know better, of course, which technically makes this a lie. And usually, this lie stands uncorrected: “People lambaste...

Categories Diplomacy/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks
October 29, 2007

There Is Such a Thing as ‘Good’ Engagement

If you’re reading this, you’re bearing with me despite the light blogging of late.  Thank you.  I make a habit of not talking about my work here, but suffice to say that it carries significant responsibilities that sometimes leave no time and energy for other things.  At times like these, when there is very little time left over, I owe that time to my family.  Thank you again for your understanding,  for continuing to stop by, and for your e-mails. ...

Categories Deprogramming/Six-Party Talks
March 25, 2007

Anju Links for 3/25: N. Korea Threatens to Do Us a Favor, Money We Can’t Follow, the FTA Circus, and S. Korea’s Slavery-Loving Unions

*   No.Please.Stop.   North Korea is threatening to pull  out of the  dreadful (for us) February 13th Agreed Framework 2.0 over  the RSOI / Foal Eagle exercises. “This may entail such serious consequences as escalating the tension between the DPRK (North Korea) and the US and scuttling the six-party talks for the settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, arranged with so much effort.”  [Channel News Asia] A KCNA statement wouldn’t be complete without a reference to...

Categories An Alliance?/Human Trafficking/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA
March 21, 2007

‘Peace in Our Time!’ Updates

[Updated below] As I write, diplomats from five nations have decided to stick around at a resort somewhere near Beijing for a couple more days, probably for many exciting hours of CNN International, while North Korea decides whether it’s interested in talking about uranium. Contrary to reports I’d read yesterday, no one is flying home just yet, but no one expects anything to get done this week, either. The holdup — which U.S. negotiator Chris Hill and the New York...

Categories Six-Party Talks/Washington Views/WMD
March 20, 2007

Anju Links for 3/20

*   Renaissance man Kevin Kim, a/k/a The Big Hominid, has launched his new book, “Water from a Skull.” *    Missed the train, but  not the train wreck.  “Notice me!,” cries Ban Ki Moon, just as the February 13th deal starts to strike immovable objects, one  of which has  an atomic  mass of 238. *   I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  the Japanese are an odd people. *   Don’t Forget to Ask for Receipts:...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/Diplomacy/Japan/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. & Korea/WMD
March 13, 2007

Breaking the Bank in Macau

[Updates: You can read Treasury’s final rule here. Start on page 14 to read just what Banco Delta failed to do to Treasury’s satisfaction. The message for North Korea’s other bankers out there is clear: ask obvious questions. Among BDA’s practices, according to the rule, was to provide a discount for a “high-risk North Korean-related bulk currency depositor” they either knew, or should have known, was laundering money. BDA obfuscated about reforms, failed to change its corrupt management, and didn’t...

Categories China/Counterfeiting/Democracy/Money Laundering
January 16, 2006

Revolution Watch / China

[Updated; Scroll down.] If the military and the peasantry unite as one, then none on this earth could possibly subvert them. –MaoRural uprisings in China are becoming so frequent, it’s getting hard to keep track of them. BEIJING (Reuters) – China has sealed off a village in southern Guangdong province after days of protests over land grabs ended at the weekend in clashes with police that killed a teenage girl, two residents said on Monday. Last week’s protest came a...

Categories Uncategorized
October 10, 2005

MacArthur Backlash Update

A group of Korean-Americans has sent a pointed message about the MacArthur statue: A group including Washington State Senator Paull Shin on Monday delivered the signatures of some 8,129 Korean Americans opposing calls to topple a statue of U.S. general Douglas MacArthur in Incheon to Grand National Party chairwoman Park Geun-hye. The signatories said today’s Republic of Korea would not exist without the sacrifices of Allied forces led by MacArthur in the Korean War. If Incheon City cannot defend the...

Categories Uncategorized
September 20, 2005

A Congressional View on the Deal that Wasn’t

By now, you may or may not have heard that North Korea has already reneged on the deal it signed just yesterday (scroll down; next post). But in Pyongyang, agreement and disagreement are both wispy things, and you never know if we’ll have a deal again in six or eight minutes. I keep a stock ticker next to my coffee pot for just that purpose. Deal or not, it’s an interesting parlor game (albeit, one with deadly serious consequences for...

Categories Uncategorized
July 26, 2005

Making Sense of Nicholas Kristof

Nicholas Kristof is a man who knows the power of righteous indignation to save lives by hitting genocidal dictators where they’re most often vulnerable: their economies. Listen to the moral authority of Nick Kristof and the New York Times in full roar when millions face imminent mass murder: So what can stop this genocide? At one level the answer is technical: sanctions . . . , a no-fly zone, a freeze of . . . officials’ assets, prosecution of the...

Categories Uncategorized
January 13, 2005

Rethinking the Beijing Four©

Yes, I still think it was a stunt. But why, specifically, does that make it wrong? For one thing, there’s the false drama of feigned outrage, but there’s plenty of reason for real outrage at China’s treatment of the North Koreans, its arrogance toward its neighbors, and its dictatorial quashing of free speech (but not for shock that the Chinese cops blundered in the way they did). There’s the Grand National Party’s own hypocrisy on the North Korea issue, but...

Categories Uncategorized