N. Korea: Drug Trade Continues to Prove Lucrative

Drugs manufactured in North Korea are entering Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia by way of Chinese brokers, with North Korea's Escort Command overseeing sales and distribution, a Daily NK source has alleged.

Escort Command is the agency responsible for the protection of Kim Jong Eun and his family.

Kim Mo (pseudonym), a former employee of North Korea’s Ministry of State Security, spoke with Daily NK on the 2nd: “Escort Command was tasked with managing the illicit drug trade by Kim Jong Il, so that he could maintain his personal slush fund, which Kim Jong Eun has inherited. The main point of production is the Hungnam Pharmaceutical Factory in South Hamkyung Province."

“Around 60% of Hungnam’s population is involved in drug manufacturing," he alleged. "It provides people in the area with cereals, sugar and oil in a bid to keep any competing forces at bay. Escort Command dominates all the distribution and sale of drugs currently being smuggled into China."

North Korean-made drugs are “cheap and of reasonable quality,” the source revealed, before adding that, “The product is popular in China, and word has reached international brokers who are now importing it into South Korea, Japan and throughout Southeast Asia.”

In order for the regime to maintain a monopoly and boost its foreign currency earnings, the Ministry of State Security has been charged with cracking down on any production and sale operating outside of state-sanctioned channels, the source testified.

“North Korea earns a lot of money by smuggling drugs into China. The drug problem has become widespread, and now people are manufacturing it on their own.”

Additionally, he asserted, “Trading companies and officials who live overseas are under surveillance by Escort Command, and are tasked with selling the drugs. Methods have been developed whereby the product is disguised as medicine or chocolate. North Koreans overseas connect with local mafia and sell large amounts of it at places like casinos."

These allegations follow reports that a group of defectors were apprehended last month by South Korean police for attempting to smuggle drugs hidden inside laptop batteries.

From the same site:

http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk01300&num=11315

Security Services Compliant in Drug Culture

Oh Se Hyeok | 2013-12-27 00:19

New testimony has emerged that appears to reconfirm that drug use is common even for North Korean officials within the security services, the organs of state that are supposed to battle against illicit activities. The testimony also alleges that the state continues to play a leading role in drug production despite claims to the contrary.

Kim Young Min, a thirty-year old male who used to smuggle goods across the Tumen River in North Hamkyung Province before his defection in spring this year, made the allegations. In conversation with Daily NK, he stated, “I was a smuggler in North Korea. I often used to meet border guards and agents from the State Security and People’s Security ministries to take drugs.”

He went on, “At that time I was doing it with security agents. I said I was weak so I couldn’t do it but they kept suggesting it to me so I had to take them up on it. Compared with ordinary people they were doing well; well built with their stomachs sticking out. So they often took drugs.”

“It’s impossible to solve North Korea’s drug problem because the people who ought to be cracking down on people’s drug use and illegal smuggling are themselves into drugs,” he concluded.

Kim also testified that in his experience the security services could readily be bought off, meaning that crackdowns on drug manufacturing tended not to have any teeth. Simply, “In instances where privately produced drugs were busted by the Chinese or if the North Korean authorities received a complaint from China then there were broader crackdowns,” he commented.

Drug manufacturing in North Korea first started in the late 1980s, led by the State Academy of Sciences in Pyongsung and industrial units in Hamheung, South Hamkyung Province. According to the source, “People helping those scientists and technicians became familiar with the manufacturing methods and soon started to make stuff privately; that’s how the knowledge began to spread.”

“Even now drugs are being manufactured and given over to the authorities,” the source controversially declared. “The authorities say that the individual production and sale of drugs is strictly controlled, but it’s impossible to control when the state is taking the lead in production.”

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