Drug Dealing North Korean Diplomats
According to the Asahi Shimbun the US will now actively stop North Korean counterfeit money and drug smuggling operations.
The Bush administration intends to squeeze North Korea on drug trafficking and counterfeit money operations, activities that are suspected of funding Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear ambitions and which often involve the reclusive state’s diplomats, says a high-ranking U.S. official.
The initiative, which is aimed at forcing North Korea to abandon its nuclear activities, will be on the agenda in coming days as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets with top officials in Japan, China and South Korea, the official told The Asahi Shimbun.
Rice, who arrived in Tokyo Friday for a two-day visit, will ask the leaders of those countries for support in smashing North Korea’s illicit money-making ventures.
Drug smugglers and counterfeiters are usually low life criminals while in North Korea they tend to be the priviledged regime higher ups that are making a load of money selling drugs:
How much Pyongyang is actually earning from drug trafficking, counterfeit dollars and other illegal activities is not known, say U.S. officials.
But according to Robert Charles, assistant secretary of state for narcotics control, it could constitute the gap between the North’s annual exports worth $600 million and more than $1 billion in foreign currency revenue.
He added that North Korean diplomats and agents have been involved in most of the 50-plus drug trafficking cases exposed in 20 countries over the past three decades.
In April 2003, Australia seized more than 100 kilograms of heroin from a North Korean freighter. Among those on board was a senior official of the ruling Worker’s Party.
In June last year, two diplomats with the North Korean Embassy in Cairo were caught trying to smuggle 150,000 tranquilizer tablets. By putting the squeeze on such illegal fund sources, Washington hopes to encourage Pyongyang to rejoin the six-nation framework.
I can’t help but have this picture in my mind of North Korean diplomats peddling drugs in the hallways of the UN. I have wondered at times what those suits at the UN were smoking. Now I know.
