According to Yonhap, the US State Department has reported to the US Senate (who controls its funding) that it does not have “sufficient information to designate North Korean individuals or organizations under the Kingpin Act, a legislation that denies foreign drug traffickers access to American financial institutions.”
According to the Article:
Peter Prahar, a director at the [State] [D]epartment’s bureau for international narcotics and law enforcement, told a Senate hearing that the U.S. does not yet have sufficient information to designate North Korean individuals or organizations under the Kingpin Act, a legislation that denies foreign drug traffickers access to American financial institutions.
He said indictments are unlikely at this point, since they require “a certain level of evidence that I don’t believe exists,” he said.
Asked if North Korea might be put on the major drug trafficker nation list, Prahar said it is something his department considers “on a regular basis.” But he cited inability to confirm reports of massive opium cultivation in North Korea, or find evidence that the country’s drug transiting is impacting the U.S.
“But this is something…that we consider regularly within the Department of State, and if we have information that will substantiate that finding, that is a recommendation we are going to make,” Prahar said.
Kim Seong-min, a former North Korean director, claimed it is certain that Pyongyang continues to produce opium. “Youngsters are used to collect extract from opium,” he told the hearing. As much as 70 percent of three North Korean counties are set aside to cultivate poppy seeds, totaling some 30,000 hectares, he claimed.
Prahar also stressed alarm at North Korea’s counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals which is “still sketchy” so its magnitude cannot be measured.
