US Treasury Department Warns Banks About Doing Business with North Korea
It seems to me that until the Treasury Department sanctions financial institutions who are doing business with North Korea, these warnings mean little:
Voice of America (VOA) reported on Tuesday that the U.S. government has warned U.S. financial institutions not to get involved in North Korean illicit activities.
VOA said that an advisory from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network urged financial institutions to follow guidelines that limit their direct exposure to transactions related to the North’s proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The measure comes after the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering under the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reaffirmed its earlier decision to put North Korea on its watch list.
The U.S. issued similar advisories in March and November of last year and in March of this year. [KBS World Radio]
When the Treasury Department sanctioned the Macao based Banco Delta Asia bank, this was the only time in recent years when the US got the Kim regime’s attention. The then Bush administration of course squandered the leverage on a nuclear deal that saw the Treasury Department return all of North Korea’s frozen money. Once the money was returned they proceeded to begin cheating on the nuclear deal.
