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Kim Jong- Il Peddling Fake Viagra
Add knockoff Viagra to the list of items exported by rogue state North Korea. Author Peter Brookes, writing in the New York Post, says that North Korea "has become a gangster nation, pocketing $700 million to $1 billion a year from counterfeiting U.S. greenbacks, trafficking illicit narcotics, smuggling contraband smokes and even peddling knockoff Viagra.” North Korea is the world’s third largest heroin producer behind Afghanistan and Burma, and 40 percent of the methamphetamine seized in Japan has been traced to Kim Jong-Il’s regime. Over the past 16 years, authorities have seized $45 million in counterfeit U.S. $100 bills, of such high quality that they are called "supernotes.”
Story Continues Below Last summer, a U.S.-Canadian undercover operation led to the indictment of 87 American and foreign smugglers with ties to Pyongyang’s illegal exports, reports Brookes, author of "A Devil’s Triangle: Terrorism, WMD and Rogue States.” Authorities seized $4 million in supernotes; one billion cigarettes worth $42 million; ecstasy, methamphetamine and Viagra worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and $700,000 in mock U.S. postage stamps. North Korea also smuggles diamonds, gold and weapons. The "payola,” according to Brookes, "keeps Kim Jong-Il flush in cognac and caviar, and buys loyalty from the military, security services and other elite.” It also helps fund North Korea’s nuclear/ballistic missile programs.
Editor's note:
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