Despite extensive sanctions against North Korea by the United Nations, European Union and United States in response to its nuclear testing, the world’s most isolated country is not as isolated economically as one might suspect.
According to a groundbreaking investigation by the Financial Times, North Korea relies on an obscure web of connections to finance foreign and domestic projects and bring in the foreign currency it needs to survive.
The main group, Office 39 based in North Korea, conducts “illicit economic activities” to produce income for the leadership, according to the Financial Times. North Korea is also known to export weapons, drugs and indentured servants.
It has dealings with a multi-million dollar private company based in Hong Kong, referred to as the Queensway Group.
The private-held group is most likely a collection of as many as 30 firms run by mainly Chinese investors. According to several reports, the Queensway Group of companies has been with multiple global business dealings, many illicit, including infrastructure-to-oil projects in Angola, diamond mining in Zimbabwe, mineral mining in Guinea and real estate in Manhattan and Singapore.
The Economist has previously reported on the Queensway Group in 2011, calling it a “little-known, opaque and unaccountable business syndicate.”
It is thought that its interest in North Korea might have to do with that country’s potential oil reserves.
Primary Organizations, Partners, Affiliates
• Office 39 of the Workers’ party, based in North Korea, known as a “slush fund” for the regime
• China Sonangol, a joint venture involved in exporting oil from Angola to China
• Korea Daesong General Trading Corporation is thought to be a front company for Office 39
• Queensway Group, also called China International Fund or China Sonangol, is headquartered in Hong Kong’s financial district at 88 Queensway
• KKG is either a brand, logo or a large North Korean state-owned enterprise
• Newbright International
Projects:
• Planned riverside property development; High-tech industrial center
People Associated:
• Mr. Sam Pa, who also goes by at least seven other names, is the founder of the Queensway Group who forged ties to North Korea and is thought to have connections with Chinese intelligence and state-owned firms. Based on his well-known support for the Robert Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe and his illicit diamond dealings, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Mr. Pa in 2014
• Mr. Jang Su Nam, once worked for Daesong
• Ms. Lo Fong-hung, Mr. Pa’s principal business partner
• Nik Zuks, an Australian founder of a London-listed mining company
• Ms. Veronica Fung, a business associate of Mr. Pa
• Mr. Jimmy Zerenie, a Singaporean attorney based in Zimbabwe, who according to the U.S. Treasury Dept. facilitated illicit diamond dealings of behalf of Mr. Pa.
Sources:
• Financial Times, June 25, 2015
• The Economist, April 13, 2011
• U.S. Treasury Dept., April 17, 2014
• 2009 Congressional Report
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