By Julian Rademeyer.

Much has been written about state-sponsored North Korean criminal activity in Asia and Europe. But relatively little attention has been devoted to North Korea’s illicit activities in Africa, which run the gamut from trafficking of rhino horn and ivory to gold and tobacco. This report – which draws on hundreds of pages of documents, academic research, press reports and interviews with government officials, diplomats and defectors in Southern Africa and South Korea – presents an overview of evidence implicating North Korea in criminal activity ranging from smuggling and drug trafficking to the manufacturing of counterfeit money and black market cigarettes. It examines North Korea’s current involvement in Africa, the complex history of African-North Korean relations and allegations that the country’s 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. An analysis of press reports and other publicly available information conducted by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime shows that North Korean diplomatic passport holders have been implicated in at least 18 cases of rhino horn and ivory smuggling in Africa since 1986. Despite North Korea’s waning influence on the continent, incriminating evidence linking its diplomats to ivory and rhino horn smuggling continues to emerge. The report includes interviews with a number of high-level North Korean defectors about their knowledge of, and stated involvement in, a range of criminal activities. They claim that smuggling by North Korean diplomats is widespread, with couriers traveling regularly to Pyongyang and Beijing in China with diplomatic bags stuffed with contraband. “[D]iplomats…would come from Africa carrying rhino horn, ivory and gold nuggets,” explained one defector who ran a North Korean front company in Beijing. “Every embassy [in Africa] was coming two or three times every year.” The persistent abuse of diplomatic immunity by North Korean diplomats and agents poses a particularly vexing problem for law enforcement. Increasing economic sanctions and isolationist policies designed to cripple North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities are likely to fuel the expansion of the regime’s illicit activities and statesponsored criminal networks.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2017. 40p.

By Arthur Conan Doyle .

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle came to the fore to publicize the dreadful massacres and genocidal crimes of Belgium’s King Leopold, who, fraudulently bought up all the land that he could then call it his Congo. He actually “owned” his own country. He then proceeded to exploit the indigenous peoples of the Congo to rob the Congo of its “riches.” He treated all the Congolese peoples as his personal slaves and used them to produce sugar, rubber and whatever else he could export and build his own riches and the lavish mansion in France and Belgium. An influential writer like Conan Doyle was needed to expose Leopold for the evil tyrant that he was, because, incredibly, Leopold achieved all his horrible gains under the guise of “humanity” and “charity” in helping the Congo people to become civilized.

NY. Doubleday. (1909) 156 pages.