THE ivory and gold came mostly from the Congo. There was also ivory from Angola and a lot of rhino horn from South Africa and Mozambique.
“The military attaché (at the embassy in Ethiopia) would bring some ivory and gold rock,” revealed North Korean “smuggler” Park Ji-wan. “They also brought rhino horn. Every embassy was coming two or three times every year. They were making cash off the horn and ivory in China and maybe 1% of the rhino horns went to DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea).”
Ji-wan’s revelations, along with interviews with other high-level North Korean defectors, diplomatic and government sources, are contained in a new hard-hitting report, “Diplomats and Deceit - North Korea’s Criminal Activities in Africa”, released this week by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime.
Written by Julian Rademeyer, a senior research fellow at the organisation who is leading a project for Traffic on the protection of Africa’s wildlife and ecosystems, the report “lifts the lid on state-sanctioned North Korean criminal activity in Africa, exposing diplomats and embassies linked to illicit trade in rhino horn, ivory, cigarettes and minerals”.
It links North Korean diplomatic passport-holders in 18 of at least 29 detected rhino horn and ivory smuggling cases involving diplomats on the continent since 1986.
Rademeyer drew from hundreds of pages of documents, press reports and academic articles, examined its involvement in Africa and allegations that its embassies in several African states are “intimately connected to a complex web of illicit activity aimed at bolstering the Kim Jong-un regime and enriching cash-strapped diplomats”.
Ji-wan, described as a “relatively recent” defector to South Korea, told how since around 2010 he “regularly facilitated transactions between diplomats based in Africa and Chinese-organised crime networks.
When he was in China, DPRK diplomats “would come from Africa carrying rhino horn, ivory and gold nuggets. They would fly to Beijing and meet directly with Chinese smugglers or I’d arrange it and we’d exchange it into hard currency.”
The DPRK embassy in South Africa was a key supplier of rhino horn, he revealed.
“It was cut into big pieces. Sometimes they were coming with white rhino horn, which was cheaper than the black rhino. At the time, I think it was $35000 a kilogram. And they were making two times that in China.”
Since the 1970s, North Korean diplomats have repeatedly been implicated in a “wide range of criminal activity” spanning drug trafficking to illicit trade in diamonds, gold, ivory, rhino horn, counterfeit currency, pharmaceuticals, tobacco and cigarettes, writes Rademeyer. But little attention has been given to the illicit activities of diplomats and smugglers in Africa, which has centred on trade in endangered species products, with allegations of North Korean involvement in smuggling counterfeit cigarettes, duty-free goods and minerals.
Still, information about the country’s involvement in criminal activity in Africa is “patchy at best”. “Few incidents make newspaper headlines and African governments with ties to Pyongyang have demonstrated a reluctance to embarrass the regime or take action against diplomats implicated.”
He cites the most recent cases on record last year when two North Korean nationals travelling on diplomatic passports were separately detained at Bole International Airport in Ethiopia en route to China.
In the first incident, a man identified as Jon Kwang-chol was arrested on September 24 after 76 pieces of worked ivory were allegedly found in his possession. On October 13, another North Korean national, Kim Chang-su, was arrested at the same airport in transit from Zimbabwe and about to board a flight to Shanghai.
“Two hundred ivory bangles were allegedly found in his possession. Kim is believed to be the North Korean trade representative in Harare. He was released without charge once identified as a diplomat.”
The arrests, he writes, came in the wake of a May 2015 incident when Mozambican police detained two men travelling in a Toyota Fortuner 4x4, registered to the North Korean embassy in Pretoria. Close to $100000 in cash and 4.5kg of rhino horn were in their vehicle.
“The suspects, later identified as Pak Chol-jun - the political counsellor at the Pretoria embassy - and Kim Jong-su - a Taekwon-Do master and suspected North Korean spy, were released by Mozambican authorities after the North Korean ambassador to South Africa intervened.”
The Saturday Star