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中공산당, 北위조달러 생산 배후
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"김정일의 ‘화폐개혁 핵폭탄’으로 중국 공산당과 연계된 ‘북한산 위조지폐’의 제조가 더욱 기승을 부릴 것"
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[1] 미 정보기관 분석에 따르면 북한산 위조 달러는 2007년을 기준으로 전 세계적으로 4천5백만 달러(한화 414억원)가량이 유통되고 있는 분석하고 있다.
미 의회조사국(CRS)이 최근 공개한 ‘북한의 미국화폐 위조’라는 제목의 보고서를 보면 “북한이 여전히 미국의 100달러짜리 위조지폐를 만들고 있으며, 이를 통해 연간 2천5백만 달러 정도의 이익을 얻고 있다”고 밝히고 있다. (2009년 6월 12일자 美 CRS보고서 인용)
보고서는 이어 미 정보당국과 재무부, 한일(韓日) 정보를 바탕으로 분석한 결과 북한이 국가 차원에서 100달러짜리 위폐를 제조하면서 외화 부족을 보충하고 있다면서 이를 통해 대량파괴무기(WMD) 기술을 습득하거나 사치품 수입 등에 충당하고 있다고 지적했다.
보고서는 “실제로 지난 2005년 8월 미 사법 당국이 뉴저지 주와 캘리포니아 주에서 중국계 범죄조직을 적발했을 때, 북한산 100달러짜리 위조지폐 4백만 달러를 압수했다”고 밝혔다.
아울러 보고서는 영국과 동유럽·페루·홍콩 등에서도 북한산 위폐가 발견되고 있는 점으로 미뤄, 북한이 지난 98년 이후에는 정부 주도로는 위폐 제조에 관여하지 않고 있다는 부인에도 불구하고 여전히 달러 위조를 계속하고 있는 것으로 보고서는 분석했다.
미 헤리티지재단의 동아시아 전문가인 존 J. 테식, 주니어는 최근 칼럼을 통해 “북한 문제에 있어 미국의 염려는 비단 핵 문제에만 그치지 않고 있다”면서 “북한은 그동안 정권이 나서 위폐공장을 건설했으며, 중국이 북한의 위폐 유통과정에 관여해왔다”고 지적한 바 있다.
북한의 위폐 제조에 중국 공산당이 있다는 것이다. 테식 연구원은 “미 정보기관 분석에 따르면 북한이 2003년 한해에만 위폐제작을 통해 벌어들인 금액은 자그마치 1억 달러에 이른다. 특히 중국은 마카오를 경유해 이 문제에 관여해 왔다”면서 다음과 같이 말했다.
“마카오 주재 포르투갈 경찰은 지난 94년 일단의 북한 무역업자들을 체포했다. 당시 이들은 외교관 신분증을 지닌 채, 마카오 은행에 25만 달러를 예금하는 과정에 있었다. 당시 이 같은 북한의 불법 자금세탁은 비밀에 부쳐졌다. 그러나 이 같은 분위기는 99년 마카오가 중국에 반환되어 특별행정구역에 편입되면서 바뀌기 시작했다.”
그는 이어 “이 때부터 미국의 정보조직들은 2005년 9월까지 이른바 ‘스모킹 드래곤 작전’을 통해 마카오의 ‘방코델타아시아’(BDA)로 유입되는 북한의 막대한 비자금을 적발했으나 이 같은 연관관계는 비밀에 부쳐졌다”고 밝혔다.
2004년 미 정보기관 요원들은 북한의 위폐 문제를 놓고 중국과의 연계관계를 추적했으나 중국 경찰의 비협조적인 태도로 수사에 실패한 전례가 있다.
이에 앞서 지난 98년 일본의 해상자위대는 수백만 달러에 달하는 슈퍼노트와 위조 엔화를 반입하려던 북한의 괴선박을 적발한 사례가 있다.
이 일이 있은 후 일본은 북한 선박에 대한 경계령을 내렸으며, 지난 2001년까지 미국과 일본 정보기관 요원들은 북한의 괴선박들이 중국의 해군기지를 정기적으로 드나들어 왔다는 정보를 포착했다.
한편, 테식 연구원은 “최근 들어 북한 위폐조직들이 본거지를 마카오에서 보안이 강화된 중국 내부로 숨어들고 있다”면서 이 같은 “중국의 태도가 바뀌지 않는 한 북한의 불법 활동은 근절될 희망이 거의 없다고 해도 과언이 아니다”라고 지적했다.
[2] 미 재무부는 지난 달 18일 각 금융기관들이 북한 은행들의 불법 활동에 대비해 더욱 주의할 것을 권고하는 주의보(Advisory)를 발표한 바 있다.
재무부는 "UN안보리의 대북 제재 결의 1718호와 1874호가 이행되면서 북한 정부와 정부 기관이 제재를 피하기 위해 북한 은행을 이용할 가능성이 높아졌다"면서 이들과의 거래에 더 많은 주의를 기울이도록 권고했다.
재무부는 모든 북한 은행과의 거래와 이들의 금융 활동에 주의해야 한다면서, 별도로 18개 북한 은행 명단을 발표했다.
이 가운데 ‘압록강개발은행’ 과 ‘단천상업은행’ 등은 이미 불법 무기판매 등과 관련돼 제재 대상으로 지목된 은행이지만 ‘금강은행’은 이날 새롭게 추가됐다.
아울러 “제재를 피하기 위해 현금 거래가 늘어날 수 있다”면서 “북한 사람이 큰 액수의 현금을 예치하거나 또는 위조 달러화를 유통시키는지 주의해야 한다”고 지적했다.
특히 재무부는 이날 주의보를 통해 북한의 위조 달러화 제조에 대해 여전히 우려하고 있다고 밝혔다. 재무부는 북한의 초정밀 위조 달러화 제조에 대해 계속 우려하고 있으며 이와 관련한 수사에 언제든지 협조할 준비가 돼 있다고 밝혔다.
김정일의 ‘화폐개혁 핵폭탄’으로 중국 공산당과 연계된 ‘북한산 위조지폐’의 제조가 더욱 기승을 부릴 것이라는 대목이다.
김필재 기자 spooner1@hanmail.net
[관련자료] April 20, 2006
Is China Complicit in North Korean Currency Counterfeiting?
by John J. Tkacik, Jr.
When it comes to North Korea, the United States has concerns about more than just nuclear weapons. For over 25 years, Pyongyang’s state-supervised currency printing plants have been churning out high-grade counterfeit U.S. dollars as well as counterfeit Japanese yen, Thai baht, and in recent years, euros. A more recent concern is the increasing evidence that China has not been an innocent bystander in North Korea’s traffic in bogus bills.
In the 1990s, Pyongyang purchased advanced high-speed banknote presses similar to those used by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing and began to print extremely high-quality copies of foreign currency notes dubbed “supernotes” by the U.S. Secret Service. The Economist Intelligence Unit estimated in 2003 that North Korea earned as much as $100 million a year from counterfeit currency.[1] In 2005, an interagency U.S. task force broke a number of North Korean counterfeit cases. The task force estimates that $45 million to $60 million in Pyongyang’s counterfeit currency (primarily in U.S. $100 bills) is in circulation today.[2]
China enters the picture through Macau. Prior to 2000, Macau was under Portugal’s colonial administration. In 1994, Portuguese police arrested several North Korean trading company executives, who carried diplomatic passports, for depositing $250,000 in counterfeit notes in a Macau bank.[3] Otherwise, counterfeit currency laundering there was not pronounced. This began to change sometime after control over the area was transferred to China in late 1999 and it became the Macau Special Administrative Region. From that time until September 2005, when a U.S. law-enforcement case known as “Operation Smoking Dragon” traced a large quantity of counterfeits to a Macau bank known as Banco Delta Asia, North Korea’s state-run global money-laundering operations were based in Macau.[4]
The United States Treasury Department quickly imposed strict financial sanctions on Banco Delta Asia, naming it as a “a willing pawn for the North Korean government to engage in corrupt financial activities through Macau, a region that needs significant improvement in its money-laundering controls.” [5] Although a Treasury spokesperson was candid about the Banco Delta Asia sanctions, she had “no comment” about whether Treasury was also investigating Beijing’s Bank of China branches in Macau.[6] U.S. law enforcement officials involved in the “Smoking Dragon” case were initially frustrated by a Justice Department decision, apparently made for diplomatic reasons, not to name China and North Korea as the sources of counterfeit currency and other goods. Oddly, indictments in an August 2005 counterfeiting case referred to source countries only by numbers.[7] North Korea was subsequently named, but China’s role remains shrouded.
Macau sources told U.S. officials that when Banco Delta Asia ceased passing supernotes for Pyongyang, North Korea’s agents moved their accounts to Chinese state-owned banks in the Zhuhai Special Economic Zone adjacent to Macau.[8] According to the Los Angeles Times, immediately following the U.S. Treasury action in Macau, North Korea’s flagship front-company there, Zokwang Trading Co., closed its headquarters on the fifth floor of an office building near Banco Delta Asia, and “most of its personnel have relocated to Zhuhai, just across the border in China proper.”[9]
Another intriguing piece in the North Korean counterfeit supernote puzzle came in October 2005 when U.S. prosecutors indicted Sean Garland, a member of Ireland’s radical left, for procuring supernotes directly from North Korean officials.[10] Garland’s connections in China had long been a focus of U.S. criminal surveillance. According to “top secret” U.S. intelligence reporting, reportedly based on telecommunications intercepts by the National Security Agency, Garland may have been introduced to his North Korean contact in 1997 by a Chinese Communist Party official, Ms. Cai Xiaobing, while visiting Beijing. Ms. Cao was identified as director of the International Liaison Department, the bureau within the Chinese Communist Party structure that supports communist parties abroad. U.S. intelligence analysts reportedly believe that the "unidentified business opportunities" that Garland discussed with Ms. Cao related to North Korea.[11]
A clear trail of supernote American $100 bills extends through China and back to North Korea. In February 2006, South Korean police arrested three people who had purchased supernote counterfeits with a face value of $140,000 from “a broker in Shenyang, China.”[12] That same month, a South Korean legislator said he had obtained Series 2003 supernote counterfeits in the Chinese city of Dandong. “I paid $70 to get each of these [counterfeit $100 bills], but you can get them for as little as $50 in China,” the legislator told a South Korean parliamentary meeting.[13] And much earlier, in 1994, U.S. Secret Service investigators had tracked the chief of the North Korean counterfeiting ring to China where, according to press reports, “the trail went cold”—at the least an indication of a lack of Chinese police cooperation.[14]
In 1998, the Japanese Navy seized a North Korean spy-ship with a multi-million dollar consignment of supernote U.S. and Japanese currency.[15] Since then, Japanese maritime forces have been alert to the movements of North Korean ships in their waters. By December 2001, Japanese and American intelligence officials had become aware that North Korean spy-ships were regular visitors to Chinese naval bases.[16]
Conclusion
A considerable amount of circumstantial evidence points to Chinese complicity in North Korea’s counterfeit currency networks. The nature of the evidence, especially the ease with which North Korean counterfeiters were able to relocate from Macau to more secure offices inside China, indicates that China gives aid and asylum to North Korean counterfeiting operations as a matter of policy. If so, there is little hope that North Korea’s criminal activities can be brought to heel until China changes its ways—whether by diplomacy or by litigation of its banks and officials.
Administration law-enforcement and intelligence agencies must be encouraged to brief Congress on the extent of Chinese cooperation with U.S. investigations into North Korean counterfeiting—or the lack thereof. U.S. prosecutors, meanwhile, must be encouraged to pursue leads involving Chinese complicity.
John J. Tkacik, Jr., is Senior Research Fellow in China Policy in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation.
[1] “Country Profile 2003 South Korea, North Korea,” Economist Intelligence Unit, p. 85.
[2] For a comprehensive look at North Korea’s counterfeit currency industry see Balbina Y. Hwang, “Curtailing North Korea’s Illicit Activities,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1679, August 25, 2003, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/bg1679.cfm.
[3] See prepared statement of William Bach, Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Department of State, “Hearing on Drugs, Counterfeiting and Arms Trade: The North Korean Connection,” before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Financial Management, The Budget, and International Security, May 20, 2003.
[4] For more background see “The Macau Connection: The Former Portuguese Colony was a Terrorist Base for Pyongyang,” Far Eastern Economic Review, February 13, 2003, at http://www.asiapacificms.com/articles/north_korea_banking/.
[5] “U.S. Says Bank Laundered Money for Pyongyang,” The Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2005, p. A12, at http://online.wsj.com/article/
0,,SB112682938731042431,00.html.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Glenn R. Simpson, Gordon Fairclough, Jay Solomon, “U.S. Probes Banks' North Korea Ties”, The Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2005, p. A3, at http://online.wsj.com/article/
0,,SB112612365849834354,00.html.
[8] Private conversations with U.S. officials.
[9] Barbara Demick, “No More Gambling on N. Korea China's Macao, its casinos looking for U.S. funds, has dropped a pariah bank client,” The Los Angeles Times, April 6, 2006, at http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/
la-fg-macao6apr06,1,7483991.story.
[10] Bill Gertz, “U.S. accuses North Korea of $100 bill counterfeiting”, The Washington Times, October 12, 2005, P. A-04, at http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/
20051011-102257-5167r.htm. See also Mark Sherman, “Irish Man Charged in Counterfeit Scheme,” The Associated Press, October 12, 2005.
[11] Bill Gertz, “China supports foreign leftists, Irish communist visited party official in 1997, NSA says,” The Washington Times, May 10, 2001, Pg. A7. See also Bill Gertz, “Irish forgery suspect fights U.S. extradition,” The Washington Times, November 17, 2005, at http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/
20051116-105810-1699r.htm.
[12]“Seoul 'Concealed U.S. Information on N.K. Dollar Fakes',” Chosun Ilbo (Seoul), February 12, 2006, at http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/
news/200602/200602120009.html.
[13] “S.Korean Lawmakers Give Details on North Fake Money,” Reuters, February 22, 2006.
[14] John K. Cooley, “The rogue money printers of Pyongyang,” International Herald Tribune, October 23, 2005.
[15] Ibid.
[16] David Ibison, “Pyongyang's spy ship reveals a dark secret,” Financial Times, May 28, 2003, p.3. See also “U.S. photos show mystery ship look-alike,” Japan Times, March 2, 2002, citing Asahi Shimbun. p.1 “Japan ends ship probe,” Japan Times, March 2, 2002 (citing Kyodo News Agency).
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