North Korea uses cash couriers, false names to outwit sanctions

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50828739#.UR9Pi6krtzw

SEOUL/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Kim Kwang-jin says that when he worked for North Korea's state insurance company in Singapore in 2003, he stuffed $20 million into two suitcases one day and sent it to Pyongyang as a special gift for then leader Kim Jong-il.

He received a medal for that, Kim Kwang-jin said.

North Korea, sanctioned by the United States since the 1950s and later by the United Nations after its nuclear tests, has been shuffling money for decades from illicit drugs, arms and financial scams and is now more expert at hiding it to fund its weapons programs and its leaders' opulent lifestyles.

"There is tremendous difficulty identifying bank accounts," said a South Korean government source who is directly involved in yet another sanctions push in the U.N. Security Council after the North conducted a third nuclear test this week.