Macao bank admits N Korea gold deals(NK sold its gold via BDA: $120M)

FT ^ | 12/10/06 | Zach Coleman and Justine Lau

[TigerLikesRooster]

Macao bank admits N Korea gold deals

By Zach Coleman and Justine Lau in Hong Kong

Published: December 10 2006 22:07 | Last updated: December 10 2006 22:07

A small Macao bank at the centre of a stand-off between North Korea and the US has said it played a bigger role in sustaining the secretive communist regime than previously admitted.

North Korea has for a year held back from six-way talks on its nuclear programme in protest at the US Treasury Department’s labelling of Banco Delta Asia as a “primary money laundering concern.” About $25m in North Korea-linked accounts at the bank were frozen.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Unfortunately, the content is for subscribers only. According to S. Korean media, the article says that N. Korea earned $120 million by selling via BDA 9.2 tons of gold produced in its gold mine. This went on for 3 years until the September of last year. BDA sold it to the market, taking $1.5 per ounce of gold as its sales commission.

Apparently, the sale of N. Korean gold is not one of the illegal activities U.S.'s financial sanction is after. BDA executives even inspected N. Korea's gold mine.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[SevenofNine]

COOL i think that pretty funny that North Korea got busted LOL!

[69ConvertibleFirebird]

NK sold its gold via BDA: $120M

That's not very much gold for an entire country. Doesn't Bill Gates carry that much with him?

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #4

For a terrorist group bent on making their own nuke-tipped ICBM, it is not small.:-)

Imagine what N. Korea could do if it has as much oil as Iran. It boggles my mind.

[martin_fierro]