Apparently, the North Koreans are making US$500 million annually on drug exports:
TOKYO — Japan’s Sankei Shimbun, citing a report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service, reported Wednesday that North Korea has earned US$500 million annually for the past one or two years by exporting narcotics and spent some of its earnings on the military.
The paper also quoted the report as saying that although the international community led by the U.S. has recently strengthened its crackdown on drug trafficking, North Korea has illegally exported over twice as many drugs as it did in the past.
According to the report entitled “Drug Trafficking and North Korea,” as North Korea saw more than a 50 percent decrease in profits made by drug trafficking as a result of having to collude with crime organizations in Russia, China, Japan or Korea in order to evade being caught, it greatly increased the amount of trafficking, thus earning some US$500 million annually over the recent years. This is equivalent to 70 percent of the country’s total exports of US$700 million as of 2000.
4 Comments
Drug crackdown = increase the profit to criminals.
You really need to do a better job of reading the drug war news.
The laws of supply and demand make M. Simon right, but in this case the pinch could hurt supplier North Korea, which will become too risky to deal with. Middlemen will switch to other less conspicuous sources. Anyone can build a meth lab.
Everybody knows, that Kim Jong-Il is making money with illegal drugs trade, but how did the Sankei Shimbun get the numbers/ estimates about the amount of profits per annum? I trust the nationalistic Sankei dimwits as far as I can throw a 300 pounds Sumo wrestler.
Asia by blog
Who’s saying what in Asian blogging? Find out below… Hong Kong, Taiwan and China Via Richard comes an interesting article on how a cousin of Pu Yi, China’s Last Emperor, got through the Cultural Revolution and was ironically working in the Summer P…