physics

Illicit activities of North Korea

Illicit activities of North Korea is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Illicit activities of North Korea rather than just read about it. In short: The alleged illicit activities of the North Korean state include manufacture and sale of illegal drugs, the manufacture and sale of counterfeit consumer goods, human trafficking, arms trafficking, wildlife trafficking, counterfeiting currency (especially the United States dollar and Chinese yuan), terrorism, and other areas. It is alleged many of these activities are undertaken at the direction and under the control…

Key takeaways

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Reference excerpt

The alleged illicit activities of the North Korean state include manufacture and sale of illegal drugs, the manufacture and sale of counterfeit consumer goods, human trafficking, arms trafficking, wildlife trafficking, counterfeiting currency (especially the United States dollar and Chinese yuan), terrorism, and other areas. It is alleged many of these activities are undertaken at the direction and under the control of the North Korean government and the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, with their proceeds going towards advancing the country's nuclear and conventional arms production, funding the lifestyles of the country's elite, and propping up the North Korean economy.

Overview Unlike criminal syndicates, the extensive nature of these illegal endeavors, and the claim 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 Paul Rexton Kan and Bruce Bechtol. However, there are questions remaining about the level of government involvement in each of the criminal enterprises. Many commentators agree 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. The British academic Hazel Smith has argued that the allegations have a weak foundation, being largely based on the claims of a few US officials and North Korean defectors. She has pointed out that there have been very few criminal convictions. She has queried the assumption that all the activities are directed by North Korea's government. According to North Korea scholar Andrei Lankov, the country's illicit activities never developed into lucrative hard currency earners. Instead, these activities exposed the country to international condemnation in exchange for marginal gain. Lankov suggests that smuggling was never intended to earn currency for the regime, but was simply a means of survival for diplomats whose funding was cut.

Room 39

Room 39 (or Office 39) is the primary government organization that seeks ways to maintain the foreign currency slush fund of North Korea's leader. Room 39 oversees many of the government's illegal activities (although the military also has its own illegal activity division) such as counterfeiting and drug production. In 2010, the department was reported to have had 17 overseas branches, 100 trading companies and banks under its control. By 2009, the office allegedly had upwards of $5 billion in assets, much of which was spread in banks throughout Macau, Hong Kong, and Europe. In August 2014, Yun Tae-hyong, a senior representative of North Korea's Korea Daesong Bank, which is suspected of being under control of Room 39, was reported to have defected to Russia taking $5 million with him. In 2015, the European Union placed the Korean National Insurance Company (KNIC) under sanctions and added that the KNIC had links to Room 39. The KNIC (which had offices in Hamburg, Germany and London, United Kingdom) was reported to have had assets of UK£787 million in 2014 and had been involved in scamming insurance markets and making investments in property and foreign exchange.

Zainichi Koreans in Japan The Japanese government accused the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan of conducting illicit trade and espionage on its soil to raise funds back to North Korea.

Evading sanctions

According to the United Nations Panel of Experts in April 2019, North Korea had developed a number of techniques and a complex web of organisations to enable it to evade the sanctions against it, particularly with regard to coal and oil. The techniques included falsification of documents and covert ship-to-ship transfers of cargo at sea. In May 2019, the United States announced it had seized a North Korean cargo vessel for carrying a coal shipment in defiance of sanctions. The Justice Department said the 17,061-tonne Wise Honest is one of the North's largest cargo ships and it was first detained by Indonesia in April 2018 but is now in the possession of the United States.

Hacking

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Illicit activities of North Korea

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Illicit activities of North Korea claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Illicit activities of North Korea before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Illicit activities of North Korea ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Illicit activities of North Korea

In research: Illicit activities of North Korea appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Illicit activities of North Korea in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Illicit activities of North Korea is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Crime in North Korea, Economy of North Korea, Foreign relations of North Korea, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Illicit activities of North Korea outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Illicit activities of North Korea in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Illicit activities of North Korea means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
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Frequently asked questions

What is Illicit activities of North Korea in simple terms?

Why does Illicit activities of North Korea matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Illicit activities of North Korea?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Illicit activities of North Korea.