Kim Jong Il's 'Cashbox'
https://www.forbes.com/2010/04/15/kim-jong-il-north-korea-opinions-columnists-claudia-rosett.html
4/15/2010
Despite all the pomp and nuclear summitry, North Korea keeps sliding down President Barack Obama’s to-do list. Yet something must be done. The threat here is not solely North Korea’s own arsenal, or its role, despite U.S. and United Nations sanctions, as a 24/7 convenience store for rogue regimes interested in weapons of mass destruction plus delivery systems. The further problem is that North Korea provides perverse inspiration for other despotisms.
While Obama talks about a world without nuclear weapons, Kim Jong Il sets tyrants everywhere a swaggering example of how to build the bomb and get away with it. Indeed, if recluse weirdo Kim can have the bomb, how on earth could Iran’s ayatollahs face themselves in the mirror every morning if they don’t have one too?
. . . . (Skip) . . . .
“Criminal Sovereignty” focuses not on proliferation per se, but on a curious institution within North Korea’s government, usually referred to as Bureau No, 39. And what, exactly, is Bureau No. 39?
Located in a heavily guarded concrete building in downtown Pyongyang, Bureau No. 39 is the nerve center of North Korea’s state-run network of international crime. Its official name is Central Committee Bureau 39 of the Korean Workers’ Party. The authors refer to it by what Bechtol says is the more accurately nuanced translation of “Office No. 39.”
The mission of Office No. 39 is to generate torrents of cash for North Korean ruler Kim Jong Il, by way of illicit activities abroad. Favorite rackets include international trafficking of drugs produced under state supervision in North Korea, and state production and laundering into world markets of counterfeit U.S. currency, and cigarettes. Such activities are tied directly to the survival of Kim’s regime. The authors report “the crimes organized by Office No. 39 are committed beyond the borders of North Korea by the regime itself, not solely for the personal enrichment of the leadership, but to prop up its armed forces and to fund its military programs.”
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(Entire article is at the link. Zim.)
(In the Strategy Page article I posted a link to,)
(it mentioned this 'Bureau No. 39'. I wanted to )
(know if it was for real . . . seems so.)
Zim.
Mad Poet Strikes Again.
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