Illicit activities under despotic N Korean regime
Muhammad Muzahidul Islam :
North Korea is an isolated country. The country is ruled by an authoritarian regime which has a little respect to its own laws, international laws, and the laws of other countries.
In order to change the behaviour, the unilateral, regional and international sanctions are imposed on the key leaders of the regime.
Amidst these sanctionsillegal activities are, allegedly, being conducted. And it is believed that these illegal activities are being conducted with direct or indirect instructions of the regime.
Do the proceeds of such activities go for the welfare of the needy people of North Korea? Are these activities any good for the international relations or the peace?
A news reports said Pakistan Customs Intelligence discovered the illicit activities published recently, on 31 January 2024, in a Pakistan based newspaper the Regional Times.
Title of the news was – ‘Customs intelligence seizes containers of foreign liquor and contraband worth millions’.
According to the news “Acting on classified intelligence, Customs Intelligence intercepted containers carrying merchandise worth millions of rupees, including foreign liquor and assorted goods earmarked for illicit trade and smuggling.
The operation revealed instances of misdeclaration and falsified information pertaining to duty-free quotas obtained by foreign embassies.
Preliminary investigation has been launched to identify and apprehend those complicit in the smuggling ring.
It has been uncovered that smugglers, in collusion with certain customs officials, exploit duty-free quotas to traffic a variety of foreign goods, ranging from mobile phones to electronic devices and premium liquor.
There are also allegations against the North Korean diplomats. According to the Diplomat (North Korea Is Closing Some Diplomatic Missions Abroad, by Hyung-jin Kim, November 04, 2023) “North Korean diplomats abroad have been tied to cases of alleged smuggling of tobacco, alcohol, drugs, gold bars, ivory, and rhino horns, as well as money laundering and other illicit activities, to fund their operating costs and transmit badly needed foreign currency back home.”
We all know that North Korea is under the multilateral sanctions regimes.
Amidst these sanctions the country still circumvents sanctions through complex smuggling operations.
According to the East Asia Forum (The complicated truth about sanctions on North Korea, 05 July 2023, by Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein), the issue of evasion illustrates why the impact of sanctions is so hard to evaluate.
Sanctions-evading actions are not rare events, but are institutionalised within North Korea’s economy. Since the 1970s, North Korea has systematically smuggled alcohol, tobacco, drugs and other contraband through its diplomatic networks abroad.
These activities continue today and with North Korean capabilities expanding into the cyber realm, sources of illicit income will likely continue to constitute an underestimated part of the regime’s hard-currency revenue flows.”
The said article further provides that “Despite North Korea’s evasion tactics, sanctions are indisputably hurting the North Korean economy. The country’s exports are estimated to be worth only a few hundred million dollars per year – much smaller than its trade losses.
The UN Panel of Experts estimated, for example, that North Korea earned around US$370 million from sanctions-violating coal exports in 2019. This is only a fraction of the US$1.19 billion it earned from such exports in 2016, before the harsher sanctions.”
On ‘sanctions evasion methods’ the report, through paragraph 33 (Avoiding detection), provides that “The Panel continued to observe pervasive use of measures to circumvent sanctions: conducting illicit transfers under darkness (usually dawn and dusk); shorter periods of ship-to-ship transfers; falsified identifiers; and dropped automatic identification system (AIS) signals during transfers.
Other measures reported by Member States to avoid detection included: use of code words; blocking AIS signals; and sending “disguised” signals. These measures are not mutually exclusive and suspect vessels typically exhibit a combination of them.”
On the ‘sanctions evasion activities’ the said report through paragraph 42 further provides that “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea continues to circumvent sanctions as follows: (a) Oil trans-shipped in multiple stages, in many cases originating in the Taiwan Strait; (b) AIS dark activity (unaccounted vessel activity during periods of no AIS transmission that could allow for a port call or ship-to-ship activity) of intermediary vessels;(c) FDDVs transmitting fraudulent identifiers when travelling to Democratic People’s Republic of Korea waters to meet with Democratic People’s Republic of Korea tankers; (d) Exploiting registered corporate ownership of vessels characterized by: limited or no online footprint; corporate registry information that lists as contacts only corporate secretaries; registered emails that appear to be throw-away (uncontactable); use of “care of” addresses; and unknown beneficial ownership.”
It is alleged that illicit activities are undertaken either at the direction or under the control of the regime. Since North Korean regime does not have any respect to the rule of law and does not have any time to think about the needs and rights of its people we can assume that the illegal-proceeds go towards advancing its nuclear and missiles productions undermining the peace and international relations. And the peace-loving people can never expect it.
(The writer is a barrister-at-law, human rights activist and an advocate at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh).
