North Korean Crime-for-Profit Activities

Abstract

Strong indications exist that the North Korean (Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK) regime is involved in illicit drug production and trafficking, as well as production and trafficking in counterfeit currency, cigarettes, and pharmaceuticals, with drug trafficking likely decreasing and counterfeiting of cigarettes expanding. Overall, the reported scale of this activity is significant and arguably provides important foreign currency resources to the military-oriented North Korean state. Media reports also indicate that North Korea may engage in insurance fraud as a matter of state policy. The DPRK's crime-for-profit activities are reportedly orchestrated by a special office charged with bringing in foreign currency under the direction of the ruling Korean Worker's Party. With the caveat that dollar value estimates of clandestine activities are highly speculative, conservative/mainstream estimates suggest North Korean criminal activity generates as much as $500 million in profit per year, with some estimates reaching the $1 billion level. A core issue is whether the income from the DPRK's reportedly widespread criminal activity is used to finance the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, thereby strengthening the DPRK's ability to maintain what many view as its truculent, no-compromise position on curbing its aggregate level of criminal activity. Moreover, the DPRK has on numerous occasions linked its ongoing participation in the Six-Party Talks to the lifting of U.S. restrictive measures against Banco Delta Asia, which are designed to sanction the Macau-based bank for its reported longstanding role in facilitating the money laundering of proceeds linked to DPRK criminal activity. The challenge facing policymakers is how to balance pursuing anti-drug, counterfeiting, and crime policies vis-a-vis North Korea against effectively pursuing other high-priority U.S. foreign policy objectives.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 16, 2007
Accession Number
ADA464834

Entities

People

  • Dick K. Nanto
  • Raphael F. Perl

Organizations

  • Library of Congress

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Agreements
  • Commerce
  • Criminals
  • Drug Abuse
  • Drug Trafficking
  • Financial Management
  • Foreign Policy
  • Governments
  • Homeland Security
  • International Organizations
  • International Security
  • Law
  • Money
  • National Security
  • Nuclear Weapons
  • United States
  • Weapons Of Mass Destruction

Readers

  • Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse Science in Autism Spectrum Disorders.
  • Economics
  • International Relations, focusing on Korea-Africa and North Korea-South Korea relations, and Nigeria-Latin American Relations.