This week comes yet more evidence—as if any were needed—that North Korea is not actually a functioning nation-state, but rather a criminal enterprise masquerading as a country. A spectacular bank heist earlier this year, which saw the South Asian nation of Bangladesh robbed of $81 million, has now been linked to the rogue regime.
The bank robbery didn’t involve ski masks, guns, or hostages; the Korean People’s Army is no Symbionese Liberation Army. Rather, hackers working for North Korea wended their way into the Bangladesh Bank’s computer system, and ordered the bank to transfer nearly $1 billion in funds to various accounts overseas. Only North Korea’s poor English skills saved Bangladesh from losing the full billion: Bankers became suspicious when they discovered that “Foundation” had been misspelled “Fundation” on one transfer-of-funds request. That unraveled the plot, but by then, more than $81 million had been robbed from the impoverished sub-continental nation.
In Pyongyang Republic, Robert Collins aptly characterized North Korea as a “Potemkin state.” Collins meant that North Korea has some of the trappings of a normal country—embassies, government ministries—but they exist merely to serve the Korean Workers’ Party and the Kim family. And we can now add robbing an already desperately poor country to the long list of horribles that the Mafioso Kim regime has perpetrated.
