State Crime: The North Korean Drug Trade

At least 50 documented incidents in more than 20 countries around the world, many involving arrest or detention of North Korean diplomats, link North Korea to drug trafficking. Such events, in the context of ongoing, credible, but unproven, allegations of large-scale state sponsorship of drug production and trafficking (especially heroin and methamphetamines), raise important issues for the global community in combating international drug trafficking. Rather than simply the activities of mercenary and corrupt individuals within the North Korean elite, the trafficking appears to be the result of a strategy initiated at the highest levels, directed through the shadowy organisation known as Bureau 39. As the DPRK's drug trade becomes increasingly entrenched, and arguably decentralised, analysts question whether the Pyongyang regime (or any subsequent government) would have the ability to restrain such activity, should it so desire.