NORTH KOREA APPEARS TO HAVE FOUND A FIX FOR ITS ECONOMY - ILLICIT DRUGS

The Communist State Is The Number Two Producer, After China, Of Ice Seized
In Japan

When the rusty fishing boat arrived from China via North Korea for an
offshore rendezvous, its crew got an unwelcome surprise - it was boarded
and searched by the Japanese coastguard.

Peeling back a wooden panel to reveal a hidden compartment, officials found
10 boxes containing more than 150kg of North Korean methamphetamines, a
potent stimulant that has long been the illegal drug of choice for abusers
in Japan.

In desperate need of money to feed its huge army and its expensive nuclear
and conventional weapons development programmes - not to mention feed its
own people - North Korea has found a lucrative source of funds in Japanese
drug addicts, experts say. "It's nothing less than state-organised crime -
to feed the Japanese stimulants and put them out of commission," opposition
lawmaker Takeshi Hidaka said in a recent parliamentary national security
committee.

Japan's illegal stimulant market - estimated to be worth more than 1.08
trillion yen (HK$70 billion) annually - is an attractive target for North
Korea. Largely cut off from the rest of the world, its economy has been
teetering on the verge of collapse for years, weighed down by a high
military budget, limited technology and little external trade.

Methamphetamines offer an easy fix. The drugs, also known as Ice, can be
relatively easily and cheaply manufactured, and transported to Japanese
users at little risk because of Japan's long and porous coastline.

Between 1999 and 2001, 1.1 tonnes of methamphetamines from North Korea was
seized in Japan. It ranked second only to China as a source of the illegal
drug. Some 1.78 tonnes from China were intercepted.

"We believe North Korea is capable of mass-producing top-quality
stimulants," said Naoto Takeuchi, an anti-narcotics official at the
National Police Agency.

Because outsiders have very little access to the isolated country, proving
North Korea's government is directly involved in the drug trade is difficult.

"We have no evidence to prove Pyongyang's role in the smuggling, although
we believe it is possibly run systematically by a large organisation," said
Minoru Hanai, of the coastguard's international criminal investigation
division.

The seizure off Kyushu island just over a year ago was typical of what
Japan is now up against. Though all the crew members aboard the intercepted
vessel were Chinese, one has testified during trial that the drugs were
taken aboard in waters just west of Pyongyang. They were almost certainly
to be sold to Japanese gangsters, who control the domestic drug trade.