Office 39
When Office 39 (including Bureau 39 , Room 39 , Division 39 and Office 39 ) is a secret facility of the Central Committee (CC) of the Workers' Party of Korea designated (WPK), the financing of the North Korean serves regime.
Circumstances indicate that the organization uses worldwide criminal machinations to procure foreign currency. Office 39 is said to be involved in counterfeit money trading , cigarette smuggling , drug-related crime and insurance fraud . It also allegedly operates the Pyongyang restaurant chain through a front company .
history
Office 39 was founded in the 1970s in the vicinity of the Central Committee of the PdAK as a central control point in order to secure an independent power base through dubious foreign exchange transactions . The Kim family is in direct control of the agency.
The organization first gained international fame with the production of high-quality counterfeit 100- dollar bills, known as superdollars , in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It is controversial whether Office 39 is actually responsible for the counterfeit dollar bills.
In Europe, Office 39 was involved in the activities of the only North Korean bank in Europe, the Golden Star Bank , which has been based in Vienna since 1982 . In 2004 the bank ceased operations because, according to the Austrian Ministry of the Interior , it was suspected of being involved in money laundering and the trade in weapons-grade material. The USA had asked the Austrian government in advance to close the bank.
In 2009 it became known through several court documents that the secret organization had made several hundred million dollars in the past by defrauding western insurance companies through fake disasters.
Evidence of the criminal involvement
In addition to the assessments of several state governments and some judgments from court cases, both North Korean and foreign managers and insurance companies as well as North Korean refugees testify to the criminal activities of Office 39. The Korea National Insurance Corporation is said to have committed insurance fraud against reinsurers in order to get foreign currency.
Web links
- North Korea's Dollar Store. Vanity Fair , August 5, 2009
- Global Insurance Fraud Outlined By North Korea. The Washington Post , June 18, 2009
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Counterfeit money and drug trafficking. ( Memento of the original from August 22, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. orf.at
- ↑ DPRK Restaurant in Amsterdam Reopened Under New Ownership. North Korea Leadership Watch, 2014, archived from the original on September 5, 2014 ; accessed on March 16, 2020 (English).
- ↑ How the Mysterious Office 39 secures Kim's power . Welt Online , March 16, 2015; accessed on September 26, 2019
- ↑ a b How Kim Jong Il Ripped Off Foreign Insurance Companies . Spiegel Online , June 18, 2009
