According to this report in Newsweek, we're making some real progress in shutting off the inflow of illicit cash that keeps the North Korean regime afloat. That's good news from a dark corner of the world.
Numerous U.S. government agencies, including the FBI, Treasury, State Department and CIA, have been working for three years to curtail Pyongyang's vast network of black-market activities—from the sale of missile technology to heroin trafficking to the manufacture of fake cigarettes and bogus Viagra—and to cut off the financial conduits by which the proceeds are laundered. David Asher, who ran the Bush administration's interagency effort, says that criminal North Korean businesses were targeted as part of "the largest undercover investigation against Asian organized crime in a decade." Washington has raised the possibility of sanctions against financial institutions that deal with Pyongyang, and has arrested or indicted dozens of figures linked to Chinese triads and the Irish Republican Army, among other groups.Posted by Alan at April 3, 2006 06:51 PMWhether this effort to squeeze Kim will persuade him to abandon his nuclear arsenal remains to be seen. But Washington officials believe that this campaign of "targeted sanctions" is proving very effective. "From what we've seen, this has been affecting the North Korean elite in particular," says Peter Beck, a Seoul-based analyst with the International Crisis Group (ICG). Indeed, according to an unclassified U.S. government document obtained by NEWSWEEK, during Kim Jong Il's January trip to China, he reportedly told Chinese President Hu Jintao that "his regime might collapse under the weight of the U.S. crackdown on his financial dealings."