Since the 1970s, the trafficking of illicit drugs has functioned as a necessary part of the Kim family’s financial security. In 1970, North Korean leader Kim Il-sung created “Central Committee Bureau 39,” referred to as “Office 39” or “Bureau 39” by the United States government and international community. The bureau provides critical support to North Korean leadership through engaging in illicit economic activities and managing the leadership’s slush funds.
Not only is it the backbone behind illicit drug trade, but it also oversees the production of a wide range of counterfeiting, including cigarettes, currency, and missiles. The office began when Kim Il-sung sanctioned the creation of an opium farm in the mountains of Hamgyong and Yanggang provinces. Production and selling of the goods would serve as the first significant contribution to the family’s slush fund. Production was slow for the first nearly twenty years until Kim’s son, Kim Jong-il took power.
The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea is a Washington, D.C.-based non-government research organization. They “seek to raise awareness about conditions in North Korea…and publish research on human rights abuses in the country.” They credit Kim Jong-il for causing the drug production boom that began in 1998, and the beginning of the drug problems that the country faces today. An increase in production allows the Kim family supplemental funds as a means to purchase luxury goods and live a lavish lifestyle, complete with private chefs, high-end bottles of wine, and fancy cheeses.
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Following Kim Il-sung’s creation of Bureau 39, it has been an office that each successor has maintained and grown. Though exact amounts regarding how much the Kim family spends are unclear, reports in 2012 indicated that when Kim Jong-un took over, “annual spending on luxury goods jumped from an average of $300 million to $645.8 million.” The European Union explains that Bureau 39 is “among the most important organizations assigned with currency and merchandise acquisition” ; however, in such a secret state, one which insists the use and production of drugs is completely illegal, it is challenging to truly understand the significance of the drug problem and illicit drug trade controlling the country.
Drug Production
Though the Kim family insists that the production of drugs is illegal, several North Korean defectors have shared their stories about the production of drugs and illegitimate trading environment.
Poppy was the first plant cultivated in the 1970s as Kim Il-sung believed it was easy to mass produce. The production of poppy was, and still is, defended by the Kim family, who insists the plant is used solely for pharmaceuticals. As more individuals and former high-ranking members of Bureau 39 defect however, more information becomes clear about the role of poppy, and how the state uses the plants to create more potent, stronger and dangerous substances.
In a hearing before the “Financial Management, the Budget, and International Security Subcommittee of the Committee on Governmental Affairs of the United States Senate” on May 20, 2003, a witness identified as Defector 1 told of his experiences working as a drug trafficker. He explained how the regime used poppy: “…Especially speaking of production and selling, trafficking drugs, and processing or growing poppies and processing poppies into heroin,” he said. “These are all done on the state level, as a state business, and they do this as a means of acquiring or earning…hard currency.”
He continued on saying that growing and trafficking drugs has been part of the national policy since the 1970s and is still pertinent today. Paul Kan, Bruce Bechtol Jr., and Robert Collins published a report, Criminal Sovereignty: Understanding North Korea’s Illicit International Activities, in March 2010. After conducting interviews, they noted it was common to hear that nearly a third of DPRK residents’ land in their villages was not farmed. They soon learned that this is due to regulations from the Kim family that the land must be kept for poppy farming and as a result, the land is technically state-owned and state-run.
Along with selling poppy, North Korea also uses the plant to produce opium, which is then sold for hard currency, as well. Additionally, production and selling of opium, heroin and methamphetamine also provide income for the regime. Amid economic sanctions placed on the state that date back to October 14, 2006, reports published since have indicated that there was dramatic spike in domestically produced crystal methamphetamine.
Methamphetamine became a more commonly produced drug following the end of the famine in the early 2000s with local chemists hired to produce extremely potent “meth crystals.” A DPRK source allegedly told DailyNK, the English-source covering the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, “… Now [that] trade has been shut down for the coal exporters due to the country’s missile launches … they are turning to drug production and smuggling as a replacement.” The source also shared their knowledge about how the drug is produced: “The base ingredient [phenylacetic acid] is smuggled in from China and then sold to producers in North Korea, who make the ‘ice’.’
Crystal meth is known to be used by a large portion of lower class, particularly among the hostile class, North Koreans as a means to curb hunger and cure headaches caused by a lack of nutrients and suffering from starvation or to fight fatigue working long hours in markets or undergoing forced labor. Lee Saera, another defector now in South Korea, equated the use of crystal meth to that of a cup of tea. ‘If you go to somebody’s house it is a polite way to greet somebody by offering them a sniff,’ he said. ‘It is like drinking coffee when you’re sleepy, but ice is so much better.’
In addition to methamphetamines, heroin, poppy and opium, the use and production has been steadily increasing in the DPRK. Amidon is the most recent of synthetic drugs to make its way into the North Korean market and trade business and it has become increasingly popular, especially among women. This particular drug was established “after it had been determined through animal experiments that the drug was both an analgesic [painkiller] and a spasmolytic [used to repress spasms], it was handed over to the military for further testing under the code name – ‘Amidon’.”
Dr. KK Chen who was researching the drug, explained Amidon was discounted due to side effects including nausea and ease overdose. Although exact numbers of use are not available from due to the secrecy of the state, the expected use of Amidon is roughly equivalent to that of those who use crystal meth. According to a study published by the North Korea Review, “at least 40% to 50% are seriously addicted to the drug.”
With an increase in production and illicit trading of these substances, the international community became aware, and in 2003 “police intercepted large North Korean drug shipments destined for the Philippines, Japan, Australia, and elsewhere.” Since 2005, it is believed that production of such drugs has slowed in the DPRK. Following his arrest for trafficking in 2013, Ye Tiong Tan Lim, a citizen of Taiwan, told the court that he agreed to supply and traffic with North Korea because his organization was the only one able to obtain methamphetamine from North Korea.
“Because before, there were eight [other criminal organizations]. But now only us, we have the NK product,” he said. Tan Lim further explained that, because of recent international tensions, the North Korean government had destroyed some methamphetamine labs “…To show Americans that they [the North Korean government] are not selling it any more, they burned it.”
Their actions were in response from threats from the United States to withhold aid and impose further sanctions on the state after the United States Department of State’s International Narcotics Control Strategy Report was published in 1999. The report claimed that after surveillance, they identified opium cultivation in the DPRK in areas totaling between 4,200 to 7,000 hectacres, approximately 16 to 27 square miles, in 1998. Such a large area of plants would yield between 35 to 44 metric tons of opium or 4.6 to 6.8 metric tons of heroin. After the INCSR report, defectors have claimed the site was moved to a different location and production is believed to still continue.
