Of moles and missiles: anatomy of a North Korean arms deal?

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Notes

1 At that time, North Korea was subject to UN sanctions, and Azerbaijan to an EU arms embargo.

2 The “Panel of Experts Established Pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009)” is a group of consultants appointed by the United Nations to monitor the implementation of its DPRK sanctions regime. As of January 2022, the panel had released 15 annual final and midterm reports. Each of the reports is authorized by a separate UN resolution which also extends the panel’s mandate. In the UN online archive of the reports (<http://www.un.org/securitycouncil/sanctions/1718/panel_experts/reports>), the titles of the reports refer to those resolutions. For example, the most recent report is “Midterm Report of the Panel of Experts Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2569 (2021).” This article has adopted that convention in citing the reports.

3 Andrea Berger, “The Michael Ranger Files: Part 1,” Arms Control Wonk, February 15, 2016, <https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1201055/the-michael-ranger-files-part-1/>.

4 Berger, “The Michael Ranger Files: Part 1.”

5 UN Security Council, “Report of the Panel of Experts Established Pursuant to Resolution 2050 (2012),” S/2013/337, June 11, 2013, p. 38, <https://www.undocs.org/S/2013/337>.

6 The 122-mm guided rockets have been exported by North Korea since the late 1970s; recipients include Egypt, Iran, Libya, Syria, and Uganda in the 1980s. The 240-mm guided rockets, which have been produced indigenously since the mid-1980s, have been exported to a handful of states, including Iran and Myanmar (as late as 2007–09). SA-16M missiles were exported to Vietnam as late as the 1990s. Phoenix-4M missiles were exported to Iran in 1980s, although not the newer laser-guided versions. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), “Arms Transfer Database,” March 15, 2021, <http://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers>.

7 The marketing material shown in the film spells the name of the system “Tochika-U,” slightly differently from the NATO designation SS-21 “Tochka” and the US name for the North Korean KN-02, the “Toska.”

8 For example, another system described in the catalog shown in the film as “Surface-to-Surface Missile SS-N2” resembles an HY-2 Silkworm. North Korea has exported the air-to-surface version to Iran in the 1980s, but never a surface-to-surface version. An unclear-origin “SS-N5 Ground to Sea Missile System” resembles the KN-19 with two tubes instead of four on a tracked chassis. The “Air-to-Air Missile R-60MK” is not known to have been exported before; SIPRI reports that North Korea received 150 missiles with the MiG-29 fighter jets it received from Russia in the early 1990s. SIPRI, “Arms Transfer Database.”

9 Joost Oliemans and Stijn Mitzer, “Missiles, Guns and Camo: A Look at North Korea’s Entire Military Parade Lineup,” NK News, October 12, 2020, <https://www.nknews.org/pro/missiles-guns-and-camo-a-look-at-north-koreas-entire-military-parade-lineup/>.

10 This could have been the Musudan missile, a system of a similar range that North Korea possessed in this time frame, although this is unclear. UN Security Council, “Final Report of the Panel of Experts Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2050,” p. 39.

11 UN Security Council, “Midterm Report of the Panel of Experts Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2515 (2020),” S/2020/840, August 28, 2020, <https://www.undocs.org/S/2020/840>, p. 195. A member state noted that Narae worked in “acquisition of equipment and technology in various sectors, such as mining and hydrocarbons, in exchange for offering technical labour or work in the field (farming workers), as well as the export of North Korean food products and rare earth metals.”

12 Daniel Salisbury, “Exploring the Use of ‘Third Countries’ in Proliferation Networks: The Case of Malaysia,” European Journal of International Security, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018), pp. 101–22.

13 James Pearson and Rozanna Latiff, “North Korean Spy Agency Runs Arms Operation out of Malaysia, U.N. Says,” Reuters, February 26, 2017, <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-malaysia-arms-insight-idUSKBN1650YE>.

14 Daniel Salisbury, “A Malaysian Shipyard with North Korean Connections?” Arms Control Wonk, May 18, 2017, <https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1203180/daniel-salisbury-a-malaysian-shipyard-with-north-korean-connections/>.

15 UN Security Council, “Final Report of the Panel of Experts Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2276 (2016),” S/2017/150, February 27, 2017, <https://www.undocs.org/S/2017/150>, pp. 43, 190. See also John Grobler, “Report: Namibia Caught Violating North Korea Sanctions,” NK News, April 14, 2016, <https://www.nknews.org/2016/04/report-namibia-caught-violating-north-korea-sanctions/>.

16 UN Security Council, “Final Report of the Panel of Experts Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2207 (2015),” S/2016/157, February 24, 2016, <https://www.undocs.org/S/2016/157>, p. 40; Andrea Berger, Target Markets: North Korea’s Military Customers (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2015), p. 45.

17 UN Security Council, “Final Report of the Panel of Experts Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2276,” p.43.

18 John Grobler, “Not Going Anywhere: North Koreans Still Working in Namibia,” NK News, January 17, 2017, <https://www.nknews.org/2017/01/not-going-anywhere-north-koreans-still-working-in-namibia/>.

19 US Department of the Treasury, “Treasury Sanctions Individuals and Entities Supporting the North Korean Government and Its Nuclear and Weapons Proliferation Efforts,” December 2, 2016, <https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl0677.aspx≥.

20 Berger, Target Markets, pp. 80–85.

21 Jane Perlez and Yufan Huang, “To Build a Ski Resort under U.N. Sanctions, North Korea Turned to China,” New York Times, February 5, 2016, <https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/06/world/asia/north-korea-china-sanctions-luxury.html>.

22 “Electro-warrior items” probably refers to items related to electronic warfare.

23 UN Security Council, “Final report of the Panel of Experts Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2345 (2017),” S/2018/171, March 5, 2018, <https://www.undocs.org/S/2018/171>, pp. 48–53.

24 UN Security Council, “Final Report of the Panel of Experts Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2345.”

25 See, for example, Andrea Berger, “The Islamic State’s North Korean Arms,” NK News, October 24, 2014, <https://www.nknews.org/2014/10/the-islamic-states-north-korean-arms/>.

26 Since 2016, UN sanctions have moved from specifically targeting North Korea’s weapons-of-mass-destruction and conventional military programs to targeting broader sectors of the North Korean economy. This included UN Security Council Resolution 2735 (2017), which severely limited the quantity of oil that North Korea could legally import.

27 US Department of Justice, Office of the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, “United States Files Complaints to Forfeit More than $11 Million from Companies that Allegedly Laundered Funds to Benefit Sanctioned North Korean Entities,” August 22, 2017, <https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/united-states-files-complaints-forfeit-more-11-million-companies-allegedly-laundered>.

28 Peter Whoriskey, “Chinese Entrepreneur Aided North Korean Efforts to Develop Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Lawsuit Says,” Washington Post, August 23, 2017, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/23/how-a-chinese-entrepreneur-evaded-sanctions-and-financed-kim-jong-uns-nuclear-weapons-program/>.

29 The quote document includes Kornet launchers (10), missiles (100), and checking devices (2); Phoenix-4M launchers (10), missiles (100), and checking devices (2); SA-16 missiles (100); 7.62-mm light machine guns (150) and ammunition (500,000); 40-mm grenade launchers for assault rifles (180); 40-mm grenade (10,000); 40-mm RPG-7 launchers (545); 40-mm anti-tank fragmentation projectiles for RPG-7 (19,660); and 40-mm anti-tank thermobaric projectiles (13,500). Other items listed were obscured in the film by the camera angles. That some weapons on this quote document are noted to be “in stock,” and the pricing given FOB (“free on board,” likely meaning that it includes all costs to have items delivered to a port, not including shipping, insurance, etc.), suggests that the month-by-month schedule indicates how soon these arms could be delivered to Mr. James, rather than when the North Koreans planned to produce them at the Ugandan factory.

30 See, for example, Andrea Berger, “The Michael Ranger Files: Part 2,” Arms Control Wonk, February 16, 2016, <https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1201058/the-michael-ranger-files-part-2/>.

31 Berger, Target Markets, p. 51.

32 UN Security Council, “Final Report of the Panel of Experts Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2050,” p. 39.

33 For example, Geoff Forden wrote a piece in 2010 considering a handful of questionable data points. More suggestions were made in the comments. Geoff Forden, “Dialing for Proliferation Dollars,” Arms Control Wonk, March 20, 2010, <https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/302667/dialing-for-proliferation-dollars/>.

34 “According to Mr. Ranger, the price per unit was in excess of US$ 100 million for those intermediate-range ballistic missiles and would be sold not less than three at a time, mixed as one long-range and two medium-range missiles or one medium-range and two long-range missiles.” Selling mixed packages of different types of missiles seems like a questionable way to market missiles, compared with the packages of five, three or two units of the same missiles offered in the film. This and the high US$100 million price calls into question the value of Ranger’s recollections in this respect. UN Security Council, “Final Report of the Panel of Experts Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2050,” p. 39.

35 Berger, Target Markets, p. 55. Data on the Ecuador deal is from Paul Holtom, Small Arms Production in Russia (London: Saferworld, 2007), p. 42.

36 Defense Industry Daily, “Turkey Orders Russian ‘Kornet’ Anti-tank Missiles,” September 23, 2008, <https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Turkey-Orders-Russian-Kornet-Anti-Tank-Missiles-05083/>.

37 UN Security Council, “Final Report of the Panel of Experts Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2276,” p.4.

38 The figure of $23 million is listed in Joby Warrick, “A North Korean Ship Was Seized off Egypt with a Huge Cache of Weapons Destined for a Surprising Buyer,” Washington Post, October 1, 2017, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/a-north-korean-ship-was-seized-off-egypt-with-a-huge-cache-of-weapons-destined-for-a-surprising-buyer/2017/10/01/d9a4e06e-a46d-11e7-b14f-f41773cd5a14_story.html>. The figure of $26 million is listed in Declan Walsh, “Need a North Korean Missile? Call the Cairo Embassy,” New York Times, March 3, 2018, <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/03/world/middleeast/egypt-north-korea-sanctions-arms-dealing.html>. The quotation document shown in the film lists RPG-7 rounds as costing $150 for fragmentation and $350 for thermobaric variants.

39 In an example cited by Berger, the price charged for the servicing of a number of BM-21 multiple-rocket launchers in the Republic of the Congo was one-fifth of that charged for similar work by a firm in Ukraine. Berger, Target Markets, p. 53.

40 There is allegedly a full range of brochures similar to the one in Appendix 1 of Berger, Target Markets, pp. 155–58; other examples of marketing such as Glocom’s website (https://www.glocom-corp.com/) and Kay Marine’s video (see stills in Salisbury, “A Malaysian Shipyard”) have provided some insights into other media used in North Korea’s arms marketing.

41 Jeffrey Lewis, “Pyongyang Pig Factory,” Arms Control Wonk, February 10, 2011, <https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/203540/pyongyang-pig-factory/>.

42 The similarity was noted in @stoa1984, “<the mole> is an interesting doku,” Twitter, October 28, 2020, <https://twitter.com/stoa1984/status/1321484464598487040?s=20>.

43 Speculation about a German-manufactured MAN truck chassis has been referred to in news accounts as being included in “American intelligence reports” in the early 1990s, but pictures of these weapons systems have not appeared in public before. See Michael R. Gordon, “U.S. Says Russians Assisted Damascus with Missile Plan,” New York Times, December 12, 1993, <https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1993/12/12/622493.html?pageNumber=2>.

44 Kyle Mizokami, “North Korea Says Its New Missile Can Turn Tanks into ‘Boiled Pumpkins,’” Popular Mechanics, February 29, 2016, <https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a19663/north-korea-anti-tank-missile/>.

45 Andrea Berger, “The Michael Ranger Files: Part 3,” Arms Control Wonk, February 17, 2016, <https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1201062/the-michael-ranger-files-part-3/>.

46 Jefferson Morley, “Wilderness of Mirrors,” The Intercept, January 1, 2018, <https://theintercept.com/2018/01/01/the-complex-legacy-of-cia-counterintelligence-chief-james-angleton/>.

47 North Korea is not known to have possessed IRBM systems in this time frame, except for the Musudan, which would later fail in seven of eight flight tests in 2016 before being scrapped. Test data are from “The CNS [Center for Nonproliferation Studies] North Korea Missile Test Database,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, updated/last reviewed April 16, 2021, <www.nti.org/analysis/articles/cns-north-korea-missile-test-database/>.

48 In Uganda, “the head of [beeped out] of Uganda” is described by local officials as being a partner, and in Jordan, the businessman notes working with what Brügger describes as “a major Jordanian power broker.” The identity of these figures is likely concealed by the filmmakers for legal reasons.