Kim Jong-un is considered an avid chain smoker. So it’s no wonder that the dictator’s subjects, such as the staff at the North Korean embassy in Singapore, follow suit. A subsidiary of British American Tobacco (BAT) had been supplying cigarettes there for years – although it was actually forbidden.
And that’s how it happened: When the USA tightened sanctions against North Korea in 2017, an employee of the Singaporean subsidiary of the tobacco company considered how business could still continue. And so he emailed a local distributor with instructions to remove any reference to North Korea from orders. The distributor suggested simply calling the North Korean embassy “Korean” embassy. In the end, it was agreed that they should simply be called “a … customer”.
All this is known because it is in the court filings, in which US Department of Justice officials describe the “sophisticated plan” of the BAT group and its subsidiary. This week, representatives from British American Tobacco and the US Department of Justice met to close a deal. The company, which makes Lucky Strike and Dunhill cigarette brands, among others, agreed to pay a $635 million fine. It is the highest penalty ever imposed under North Korea’s sanctions.
Kim is said to have smoked as a boarding school student in Switzerland
In any case, the tobacco company admitted to having delivered cigarettes worth almost $30 million to the North Korean embassy in Singapore, which are said to have then made their way to North Korea. A clear violation of the sanctions. In addition, BAT took more than $250 million from North Korean banks, which were also affected by the sanctions. The money apparently got into BAT’s account via complicated constructs by US financial service providers.
That this worked at all is amazing. Because since the end of the noughties, almost all Western companies have stopped doing business with North Korea. Apparently British American Tobacco didn’t want to take part, the group still saw a lucrative sales market in North Korea. As Brian Nelson, a US Treasury Department official put it this week, “BAT has partnered with North Korea for years to build and operate a cigarette business, relying on financial intermediaries associated with the North Korean network for… proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”
BAT boss Jack Bowles said the tobacco company regrets “misconduct resulting from previous business activities”. Bowles himself is not blamed. It looks like he has nothing to do with this.
The question remains as to where the passionate smoker Kim Jong-un will get his cigarettes from in the future. According to South Korean secret service information, he is said to have snapped at his then-girlfriend when he was a 15-year-old boarding school student in Bern because she had advised him not to use tobacco. Stop smoking? Doesn’t seem to be an option for Kim.