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The illicit activities of the North Korean state extend to the manufacture and sale of illegal drugs, the manufacture and sale of counterfeit goods, human trafficking, arms trafficking, counterfeiting currency, and other areas. Many of these activities are undertaken at the direction of, and under the control of, the North Korean government, and their proceeds go toward advancing the country's nuclear and conventional arms production, funding the lifestyles of the country's elite, and propping up the national economy. Unlike other corrupt nations or criminal syndicates, the extensive nature of these illegal endeavors, and the fact that they are directed and sanctioned by the highest levels of government,〔 has led to the nature of the North Korean state being defined as a form of "criminal sovereignty" by foreign policy experts such as Paul Rexton Kan and Bruce Bechtol.〔 However, there are questions remaining about the level of government involvement in each of the criminal enterprises. There is little doubt that the North Korean state has been behind counterfeiting currency, human trafficking, the arms trade etc., but the level to which it has been involved in the drug trade after the collapse of the Public Distribution System in the 1990s is not clear as semi-private and private black markets have arisen since then and some high-ranking officials may only be engaged in illicit trade for personal benefit. ==Drug trade== North Korea's illegal drug trade dates back to the 1970s and includes the manufacturing, selling, and trafficking of illicit drugs, as well as counterfeit otherwise legal pharmaceuticals. Production began in the mountainous Hamkyung and Yangkang Provinces, particularly in the village of Yonsah, where Kim Il-Sung sanctioned the creation of an opium farm.〔 In order to provide a cover of legitimacy, the North Korean government uses front companies, like the Ryugyong Corporation under the control of the Worker's Party of Korea's Foreign Relations Department, to conduct clandestine activities. The company also holds large tracts of land within the country for the sole purpose of growing opium〔 and each year the company sent tens of thousands of dollars in hard currency to Kim Jong Il's for his use. Unlike most companies, Ryugyong Corporation has no import or export quota restrictions.〔 According to defector Yoon Yong Sol, during the famine "''()here were some complaints that during the famine we should be growing grain, not poppies, but the instruction from the central government was that if we grow poppies we can sell the product for 10 times as much to buy grain...()he only way to earn hard currency is by drugs.''"〔 Reports of methamphetamine (known as "ice drug" in North Korea) use in the country surfaced in the late-1990s. According to the news publication Foreign Policy, the production of "meth" in North Korea is done by chemists and other underemployed scientists.〔 Methamphetamine is actually given as a medication within North Korea (whose health-system has all but collapsed) which has helped to fuel its spread. As the production and sale of opium declined in the mid-2000s, methamphetamine became more pervasive.〔 To bring in much needed cash, the international meth trade began, spreading first to China, and with the drug being made in state-run laboratories. China officially admitted to the drug problem stemming from North Korea in 2004, with Jilin Province being the most important transshipment point from North Korea. The production, storage, financing, and sale of the DPRK's meth trade reaches multiple countries from the Philippines, the United States, Hong Kong, Thailand, western Africa and others.〔 In 2010, five foreign nationals were prosecuted as part of a conspiracy involving North Korea to smuggle 40 pounds of meth into the United States and to sell it for $30,000 a pound.〔 In 2001, income from illegal drugs amounted to between $500 million and $1 billion.〔 In a 2013 Washington Post article, annual revenues from methamphetamine sales are estimated at $100 million to $200 million. Between 1977 and 2003, more than 20 North Korean diplomats, agents, and trade officials have been implicated, detained, or arrested in drug-smuggling operations in more than a dozen countries.〔 In 2004, two North Korean embassy employees were caught smuggling 150,000 tablets of Clonazepam in Egypt, and in that same year, embassy employees from Bulgaria were arrested in Turkey in possession of over 500,000 tablets of Captagon (the brand name for the synthetic stimulant fenethylline, or phenethylline), with an estimated street value of $7 million.〔 The government of North Korea has only admitted that such acts were undertaken by individuals, and not at the direction of the state.〔 According to the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, since 2001 drug trafficking operations by diplomats had ceased, with the focus then becoming the production of drugs to be smuggled by other criminal organizations.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「North Korea's illicit activities」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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