North Korea is widely known to be one of biggest sellers of methamphetamines (meth), market in high end fake luxury items and the manufacture of counterfeit U.S. currency. As with any secretive repressive government with a large standing army large sums of money are needed to support the military apparatus keeping you in power. Who do you turn too? A British banker who lived in Pyongyang for two decades. Even though the UN and numerous countries have placed severe sanctions on North Korea Nigel Cowie was there to help set-up a front company ensuring Pyongyang's quest for nuclear weapons would be funded through illegal arms sales.
A British banker who spent two decades living in communist North Korea set up a secret offshore finance company allegedly used by the Pyongyang regime to help sell arms and expand its nuclear weapons programme.
Nigel Cowie – a fluent Korean and Chinese speaker, who studied at Edinburgh University – was behind a Pyongyang front company, DCB Finance Limited, registered in the British Virgin Islands, papers show.
He says DCB Finance was used forLEGITIMATE BUSINESS
and that he was unaware of any unlawful transactions.
and that he was unaware of any unlawful transactions.
Cowie moved to North Korea in 1995 when Kim Jong-il was in power, and went on to become head of its first foreign bank, Daedong Credit Bank. Initially operating out of a ramshackle PyongyangHOTEL with a staff of three, Cowie led a consortium that in 2006 bought a 70% stake in the bank.
with a staff of three, Cowie led a consortium that in 2006 bought a 70% stake in the bank.
He was unaware that the shell company he help create was being used to get around the embargo on the sale of military equipment by North Korea. Unaware because he's now been implicated in a blatantly illegal scheme to circumvent the sanctions placed on North Korea,
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