Also on the NK beat, here’s a report (pdf) on the activities of Office 39, which is about the closest thing the world actually has to SPECTRE.
I’m not sure about some of the stuff in there. There’s a real debate, for instance, over whether North Korea actually has the technical capability to forge supernotes. And the stories about working with Burmese anti-government groups on major heroin deals sound odd at a time when Pyongyang is also supposed to be working closely with the government on arms deals. But then that would be very North Korean.
And I must say, it’s a grand life in the Pyongyang diplomatic:
In1977, after only 3 years of diplomatic ties, Venezuela expelled all North Korean diplomats for trafficking drugs.22 In 1996, Russia arrested a North Korean envoy with 50 pounds of heroin in his possession.23 In 1998,Egyptian police arrested a North Korean diplomat who was attempting to smuggle 500,000 tabs of rohypnol (also known as the “date rape drug”) into Egypt while Russian authorities arrested two North Korean diplomats in possession of 35 kilograms of cocaine. Later the same year, German police arrested the North Korean deputy ambassador who possessed heroin that was believed to be manufactured in North Korea, and Chinese authorities arrested a North Korean consulate employee with 9 kilograms of opium.
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