Satellite films North Korea dollar factory

London Telegraph
Feb. 24, 2006

Opposition MPs in South Korea yesterday revealed details of what they said was North Korean forging of $100 notes, including a photograph of the plant that printed them.

America has claimed for years that Kim Jong-il's regime makes up for its lack of funds by dealing in drugs and laundering fake US notes. But South Korea, eager not to rouse the North to anger and jeopardise its policy of detente, has denied that there is firm evidence.

Kim Jae-won and Kim Moon-soo, MPs from its Right-of-centre Grand National Party, yesterday produced a satellite photograph they said was of the counterfeiting plant.

"The information comes from a recent defector from the North who was a high-ranking official," said Kim Jae-won.

The MPs also showed high-quality fake $100 notes they said had been passed to them by human rights activists working with refugees in Dandong on the Chinese border. The notes were laundered in China, they claimed.

But South Korea's prime minister, Lee Hae-chan, said: "It has not been clearly confirmed where, by who and how these counterfeit notes were circulated."

The North denies the allegations.