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SCMP Reporter

NARCO state or merely a desperate cough medicine manufacturer?  That is the question dogging regional drug intelligence officers amid strong signs North Korea has started to manufacture methamphetamine - one of the region's most abused drugs.

 Private fears among United States, Thai, Japanese and South Korea agents are building after the recent discovery that 100kg of the powerful stimulant seized in Japanese waters in March was shipped from a port in North Korea.

 United Nations drug control officials are - for the moment at least - giving Pyongyang the benefit of the doubt.

 But a potential international row is brewing.

 Any new request from Pyongyang for a shipment of ephedrine - the key ingredient in methamphetamine - must be seriously considered, said Akira Fujino, deputy secretary-general of the UN's International Narcotics Control Board.

 'Of course we have our concerns, but facts are facts. We still have to see a lot more evidence before anyone can condemn North Korea with certainty,' Mr Fujino said.

 Suspicions were triggered in January last year when the UN board authorised a shipment of 2.5 tonnes of ephedrine from India to Pyongyang.

 Pyongyang insisted the shipment - the first for several years - was vital for the production of cough medicine.

 Ephedrine still has limited medicinal uses, while methamphetamine has none.

 Thailand, closely backed by Bangkok-based agents for the US Drug Enforcement Administration and South Korea, thought otherwise and seized the haul as it passed through Don Maung airport.

 The North Korean protests were sharp and fast. Eight months later, Pyongyang scored a rare diplomatic coup as the shipment was returned by a reluctant Thai Government.

 Now, following the recent seizure, Japanese prosecutors are claiming 'proof' that North Korea is secretly producing methamphetamine for export to bolster foreign reserves.

 South Korean and Japanese gangsters have been arrested in connection with the haul, which investigations have revealed was carried on a Chinese ship from the North Korean port of Hungnam.

 The 100kg could have been broken down into about three million doses with an estimated street value of US$500 million (HK$3.9 billion).

 Privately, angry US, Thai and South Korean agents link the ephedrine shipment directly to the seizure.

 'This is an outrage. We have been completely snookered in our efforts,' one US agent said.

 'This is the strongest sign yet that North Korea is actually producing this stuff.'  Mr Fujino said the UN board was seeking more information from the Japanese and had opened new channels of communication with the North Koreans, who claim the cough medicine production has started.

 He said he wanted to stress that the board had not yet received crucial tests to prove the source of the seized methamphetamine, produced in far greater amounts in several other countries in the region, including Japan, China and Burma.

 Other board sources warn they have found themselves in the midst of a propaganda war as South Korean and US intelligence agencies seek to demonise Pyongyang.

 'We know that some of their diplomats have been caught drug trafficking to make ends meet,' one source said.

 'That is still a long way from proving a state is actually producing huge amounts of a very dangerous drug for illicit export.

 'It is entirely legitimate that they need to produce cough medicine given the conditions in North Korea.' 



Drug furore over North's 'cough medicine' shipment