Treasury lists another North Korean banking front

The U.S. Department of the Treasury acted on August 11th to list Korea Kwangson Banking Corp. (KKBC) under Executive Order 13382.

E.O. 13382 freezes the assets of proliferators of WMD and their supporters and prohibits U.S. persons from engaging in transactions with them, thereby isolating them from the U.S. financial and commercial systems.

"North Korea's use of a little-known bank, KKBC, to mask the international financial business of sanctioned proliferators demonstrates the lengths to which the regime will go to continue its proliferation activities and the high risk that any business with North Korea may well be illicit," said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey.

The listing was also pursuant to UNSC Resolution 1718, sanctioning North Korean activities related to proliferation.

KKBC is another of the tangled mass of financial routes used to bring hard currency payments for weapons back to North Korea. A clear case of this was the movement of funds from Myanmar (Burma) to the People's Republic of China earlier this year, evading sanctions on both North Korea and Myanmar.