Office 39

North Korea is a criminal state, yet the prior adminstration declined to persue charges of currency counterfeiting as well as other criminal activities against the regime of the "Team America" star. Chalk up another fine foreign policy move to Dubya!

Atta-boy George.



From Slate...

Liu had been convicted of conspiracy and fraud involving millions of dollars made not by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing but by counterfeiting presses in a foreign country, presumably North Korea. The quality of these “supernote” forgeries is so high that he’d managed to pass enormous quantities through the electronic detection devices with which every Vegas slot machine is supposed to be equipped.

Liu’s crimes were part of a vast criminal enterprise believed to be controlled by the North Korean state, set up and used to finance its nuclear-weapons program. All of this, intelligence analysts say, is coordinated by a secret agency inside the North Korean government controlled directly by “the Dear Leader,” Kim Jong Il, himself. The agency is known as Office 39.

“They need money,” says Park. “Where else can they get it?” The answer, senior U.S. officials believe, is by means of organized crime: not only the production of counterfeit currency but also the manufacture and export of counterfeit cigarettes and pharmaceuticals, and the sale of drugs such as heroin and crystal methamphetamine.

As noted, at the center of this activity lies Office 39. And a question that remains to be answered is whether the Obama administration will revive the efforts against it that President Bush declined to pursue.