North Korean Diplomat Caught Smuggling Gold
Via a reader, this story just makes you wonder who the North Koreans are smuggling gold for or is gold some how being used to get around financial sanctions? That is the biggest questions that need to be looked at with this story:
Bangladeshi customs officers caught a North Korean diplomat trying to smuggle an estimated $1.4 million worth of gold into the country, a senior official said on Friday.
“We recovered the gold both in the form of bars and ornaments from Son Young Nam, the First Secretary of the North Korean Embassy in Dhaka,” said Moinul Khan, Director General of the Custom Intelligence department, adding the gold weighed about 27 kg (60 pounds) in total.
The diplomat was released after his confessional statement, but Bangladesh is seeking to press charges.
“What he did is beyond diplomatic norms,” Khan told Reuters, adding that a visitor can legally bring up to $1,282 worth of gold into Bangladesh.
Khan said the diplomat had passed through the green channel at Dhaka international airport on a late arriving Singapore Airlines flight from Singapore. Customs officials then asked to scan his hand luggage.
“He told our officials there was nothing to scan,” said Najibur Rahman, chairman of the National Board of Revenue.
“Later we informed our foreign ministry and he was released on Friday under the Vienna Convention,” Najibur told Reuters.
A case has been filed against him with the customs department, Khan said. “We have also initiated the process to file a criminal case against him.” [Huffington Post]
You can read more at the link.
The real question here is what business is it of any government if people have gold?
Lots of excuses can be made about drugs and terrorism and oppressive regimes… but the reality is much of the concern about what people have is due to Big Governments and Big Finance keeping control of their monopolies on taxes, fees, fiat currency… and making sure nobody crawls their way up above the general rabble without excessive scrutiny before they join the monied ruling class…
…at which point they can avoid taxes, charge the fees, promote the fiat currency… and engage in less obvious variations of the exact behavior tight control over asset transfer is claimed to inhibit.
Do I need to put on my tinfoil hat?
Frankly I have to agree. But tax evasion is how they got Capone…