Editor’s Note: The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea report, “Illicit: North Korea’s Evolving Operations to Earn Hard Currency,” by Sheena Chestnut Greitens is attached here.
From: The Telegraph
Pyongyang diversifying from manufacturing drugs and counterfeiting foreign currency in order to fund its nuclear and missile programmes
Julian Ryall in Tokyo
North Korea has diversified its business model for earning hard currency, shifting from a reliance on manufacturing drugs and counterfeiting foreign bank notes to smuggling products from endangered species, fake pharmaceuticals and counterfeit cigarettes.
The details of Pyongyang’s methods of earning the funds it needs to pay for its nuclear and missile programmes are spelled out in a study released on Tuesday by the Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.
The 115-page report says Pyongyang has been producing narcotics and smuggling them abroad through the diplomatic bag and printing high-quality forgeries of foreign currency since the mid-1970s, all part of the Kim regime’s “fundamental strategic objective” of self-preservation.
