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North Korea Heroin shipment
EFLThe interception of a US$48 million heroin shipment in Australia has given Washington an unexpected diplomatic lever as it acts to neutralize North Korea's weapons of mass destruction. Senior US terrorism and narcotics advisor Raphael Perl said in Washington on the weekend that the Pong Su shipment was part of a wider trafficking network sanctioned by North Korea's reclusive leadership. "No question about it. It is standard practice for them to use trading companies for shipping narcotics," he said. According to reports in diplomatic circles, North Korean envoys were in direct radio contact with the ship shortly before it was boarded, but the crew ignored pleas that they cooperate with Australian security forces. Washington has long been criticized for playing down the impact of smuggled contraband from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), primarily because these shipments were not thought to be directed against US interests. In its latest country assessment, released in February, the State Department reiterated that "there is still no evidence that even a single incident of trafficking from the DPRK has had any impact on the US". Most seizures have taken place within a short distance of North Korea, and appear to be an offshoot of Pyongyang's well-documented involvement in Asian gambling industries and white-collar crimes. Last year 79kg of heroin was recovered by authorities in Taiwan, and a separate shipment of 150kg of methamphetamines, the largest in recent years, was apprehended in Japan. In Seoul, a North Korean defector revealed the existence of a 100-member trafficking ring based in Pyongyang and admitted making nine illicit border crossings into China since 1998, each time bringing in 50kg of heroin. As with the Australian seizure, it was unclear whether the operations were being directed by Asian syndicates using North Korean crewmen or had high-level involvement from Pyongyang. "Police interrogation of suspects apprehended while trafficking in illicit drugs developed credible reports of North Korean boats engaged in transporting heroin and uniformed North Korean personnel transferring drugs from North Korean vessels to traffickers' boats," the State Department noted. "It nevertheless remains possible that criminal elements, or some rogue military organization in the DPRK, are trafficking on their own, without formal state direction."
Sure, why not? What else would North Korean farmers be expected to cultivate other than H? According to reports compiled by the South Korean government, cultivation was stepped up dramatically in the mid-1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union severed Pyongyang's main source of foreign exchange and precipitated a deep economic crisis. Seoul claims, with backing from some independent US monitors, that the farms are now operated by the state security apparatus and manned by army units using political prisoners as a slave labor. Based on the South Korean estimates, about 40 tonnes of opium is produced each year, with a street value of $50 million to $100 million. Data on other drugs are hazy, but an average of 400kg of chemicals are imported each year to make methamphetamines. "Since only 1.5 [tonnes] per year would be enough to make medicines like cough suppressants and medicine for treating bronchial asthma in North Korea, it is clear that the remaining quantity is likely to be converted into 'meth' to be sold in secret overseas through international drug smuggling networks," Seoul alleged in a report issued last year. Coast guard officers in Japan are also believed to have uncovered evidence of a link between North Korea and mafia groups when they salvaged a ship last year that had been scuttled by its crew just before they were apprehended. The ship was almost identical to others used in North Korean smuggling rings, and contained a mobile phone with the stored numbers of known members of Japan's Yakuza criminal underworld. It is not just heroin that Pyongyang is believed to have been trafficking with its new partners in crime: Washington is convinced that the narcotics routes also serve as a conduit for shipments of arms and forged documents. Intelligence agencies in the United States have listed North Korea as the biggest global source of ballistic missiles, in a trade that nets Pyongyang at least $150 million a year from such unstable regimes as Libya, Pakistan, Iran, Syria and Yemen. The usual suspects Washington may not have a smoking gun to brandish in the demilitarization talks with Pyongyang, but intelligence derived from the narcotics seizures offers the next best thing. "Find the drugs and you also stand a good chance of finding whatever else they have been doing," said the diplomat. "Narcotics and gun-running are two sides of the same terrorist coin. The difficulty is in proving that we are dealing with state-sponsored terrorism and not just a rogue criminal organization that is functioning on its own behalf." Kinda puts KCNA's daily foaming at the mouth rants in a whole new perspective
Posted by: Paul Moloney 2003-05-01 |
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