Pubdate: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 Source: United Press International Copyright: 1999 United Press International N.KOREA SPONSORING DRUG TRAFFICKING WASHINGTON, - North Korea, facing famine and short of cash, is turning to state-sponsoring drug-running. The Washington Post is reporting today that U.S. and international drug officials say Korean diplomats have been captured in recent years in several countries bearing large amounts of cocaine and methamphetamines. South Korean intelligence sources and North Korean defectors confirm North Korea's entry into the illegal drug business. ``The state is the Mafia,'' former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea James Lilley told the newspaper, adding that North Koreans routinely use diplomatic pouches - which are immune to customs searches - to transfer drugs across international boundaries. The Congressional Research Service reports that North Korea generated about $71 million from drugs and $15 million from counterfeiting in 1997. The CRS said the figures are ``conservative estimates.'' North Korea's international isolation has created a money crunch and forced it to close most of its diplomatic missions while demanding that those diplomats still in the field somehow earn hard currency and send some of it back to Pyongyang. An official told the Post: ``So these poor guys are sitting there trying to spin gold from straw. I suspect that is where you get some of the drug dealing.'' Some U.S. senators have demanded that North Korea, which they suspect is using the drug money to finance its military, be included in the state Department's annual drug trafficking report. The latest such report says North Korea has as much as 17,300 acres in poppy productions, which could yield as much as 4.5 metric tons of heroin. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, tells the Post: ``We want to know why, with the indications we are getting the North Korean government is implicated in drug production, there is not more of an effort to confront the issue. We have got to stop ignoring drug trafficking and treating North Korea like a 'most favored rogue state' in the hopes they will unilaterally stop producing drugs.'' The newspaper said in January Interpol agents in Moscow searched North Korean diplomats arriving from Mexico and found 77 pounds of cocaine, with a value of some $4.5 million, in the pair's luggage. Last year in Japan police seized about $100 million worth of methamphetamines from a North Korean ship. The North Koreans had labeled the containers ``honey'' and officials were suspicious of a country experiencing a severe famine exporting food. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea