North Korean spy ran hotels, casinos and travel agency in Cambodia: UN report
Expert says Cambodia has been a ‘gold mine’ for North Korean operatives looking to set up shop
Ethan Jewell, February 15, 2022

A North Korean spy in Cambodia ran hotels, casinos, travel agencies, restaurants and bars as late as mid-2020, an upcoming U.N. report states, exposing what one expert calls part of a decades long pattern of Cambodia abetting Pyongyang’s intelligence operations and illegal economic activities.

The operative, whose real name was Kim Chol Sok, ran the businesses under the alias “Sok Kha” at the behest of the Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB), North Korea’s top spy agency. According to the draft of the U.N. Panel of Experts report, one of the businesses Kim ran was C.H. World Travel Co. Ltd., a Phnom Penh-based travel agency that has specialized in tours in East and Southeast Asia.

Cambodian authorities told U.N. sanctions monitors that they shut down C.H. World Travel and its bank accounts, but corporate records reviewed by NK News show the company is still legally registered. The company’s Facebook page boasting more than 200,000 followers last uploaded a post just two weeks ago, although its official website is no longer accessible.

Calls to numbers listed on an archived version of the company’s site went unanswered.

Moreover, records from Cambodia’s Ministry of Commerce show that an individual named Lee Hong Mann served on the company’s board of directors. Lee’s surname may hint at an ethnically Korean background, but she does not appear in the U.N. report.

Cambodia told the U.N. it was taking legal action against Kim, who has not been seen since Nov. 2020 according to the Panel report. Meanwhile, a scan of a Cambodian passport appearing to belong to Lee uploaded to Facebook suggests she has been granted entry to Canada until at least 2025.

CAMBODIAN COLLABORATORS

Cambodian authorities reportedly told the U.N. that Kim Chol Sok also had a fake diplomatic passport. But Kim’s ties to the Cambodian government run deep, raising the possibility that Phnom Penh helped create the documents.

Nate Thayer, who worked as an investigative journalist in Cambodia for 15 years, told NK News that Sok Kha’s activities in the country fit a decadeslong pattern of North Korea using Cambodia as a “base of operations” for a wide range of illegal activity.

He pointed to past instances of Pyongyang-backed counterfeiters laundering fake $100 bills (“supernotes”) in Cambodia, noting that those operatives also had Cambodian identity cards and passports.

“They sell [Cambodian passports] like candy to the highest bidder,” Thayer said. “And the North Koreans pay.”

According to the U.N. report, Kim was a business associate of Try Pheap, an infamous Cambodian logging tycoon whom the U.S. sanctioned in 2019 for corruption.

Try Pheap himself is a close associate of Cambodian Prime Minister HE. Such high-level connections have allowed him to even use Cambodian military forces to protect shipments of illegal products, according to the U.S. Treasury.

Thayer said the criminal and political ties between Pyongyang and Phnom Penh date back to North Korean founder Kim Il Sung’s personal friendship with King Norodom Sihanouk, who ruled Cambodia in various capacities between 1941 and 2003. Sihanouk’s son Norodom Sihamoni, the current king, even studied filmmaking in North Korea in the 1970s.
https://www.nknews.org/2022/02/north-ko ... un-report/

“They sell [Cambodian passports] like candy to the highest bidder,” Thayer said. “And the North Koreans pay.”

This will comes as news to the 50c Riverside beer mob,they'll be up in arms over this before retiring to the shade to imbibe another cool and cheap one?

Singapore Slinger wrote: ↑Tue Feb 15, 2022 10:55 pm “They sell [Cambodian passports] like candy to the highest bidder,” Thayer said. “And the North Koreans pay.”

This will comes as news to the 50c Riverside beer mob,they'll be up in arms over this before retiring to the shade to imbibe another cool and cheap one?

How much is a cold beer in Singapore?

Doc67 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 16, 2022 9:18 am

Singapore Slinger wrote: ↑Tue Feb 15, 2022 10:55 pm “They sell [Cambodian passports] like candy to the highest bidder,” Thayer said. “And the North Koreans pay.”

This will comes as news to the 50c Riverside beer mob,they'll be up in arms over this before retiring to the shade to imbibe another cool and cheap one?

How much is a cold beer in Singapore?

About the same as in Malaysia so stupid money!

Foreign Ministry Rejects News Reports N. Korean Businesses in Cambodia
AKP Phnom Penh, February 17, 2022 --

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation this evening issued a statement, rejecting an unfounded news report on North Korean-run businesses in Cambodia and reaffirming the Kingdom’s stance to fully comply with the UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.

The full statement reads as follows:



“Clarification of the Spokesperson

of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation

on Implementation of UNSC Resolutions on Sanctions on DPRK

-----------

The Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation rejects categorically the unfounded report alleging that “North Korean spy ran hotels, casinos and travel agency in Cambodia” published in NK News on 15 February 2022. As a matter of facts, Cambodia has complied with all UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, shut down all businesses and bank accounts of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the country and halted granting work authorization for workers from DPRK.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MFAIC), through the Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of Cambodia to the United Nations, has submitted on 20 January 2020 the country’s National Report on the Implementation of UNSC Resolutions on Sanctions on the DPRK to the Chair of the UNSC Committee established pursuant to UNSC Resolution 1718 (2006).

Cambodia has always adhered to its firm stance of supporting non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction towards the complete elimination of these weapons, underlining that “As a responsible member of the United Nations, Cambodia has completely fulfilled its international obligations under the Charter of the United Nations and has faithfully implemented the resolutions of the UNSC on sanctions on the DPRK.”

To effectively implement the requirements of the UNSC sanctions resolutions on DPRK, the MFAIC has duly informed all relevant ministries and institutions about all UNSC resolutions regarding the DPRK for taking concrete actions.

On 1 March 2018, the Royal Government of Cambodia established an inter-ministerial ad hoc working group for the inspection of all documents and the investigation of the companies and businesses of the DPRK. The inter-ministerial ad hoc working group has conducted at least nine meetings, co-chaired by the MFAIC and the Ministry of Commerce, to decide on concrete measures to be taken in compliance with various types of sanctions as prescribed in the UNSC resolutions.

As results, seven bank accounts in two different financial institutions have been closed since 2017. Cambodia has shut down all DPRK’s businesses, including restaurants and museums, operating in Cambodia. On 12 June 2019, the Ministry of Commerce has deregistered a company of the DPRK- Glory Worldwide Glow Co. Ltd. The Ministry of Commerce has searched the entities registered in its system and found that 12 entities, including Mansudae New Tech Corporation Ltd. were related to the DPRK. All of them have been deregistered on 30 December 2019. Eight restaurants have had their license deregistered and shut down on 5 December 2019.

Since 2017, Cambodia has stopped granting work authorization for workers from the DPRK. As of 30 November 2019, the government decided not to issue the extension of visas for the DPRK nationals who worked in Cambodia.

Phnom Penh, 17 February 2022”

By C. Nika
AKP

Large floral baskets sent to DPRK embassy in Cambodia
Date: 18/02/2022 | Source: Voice of Korea (EN) | Read original version at source

King Norodom Sihamoni and Great Queen Norodom Monineath Sihanouk of Cambodia sent large floral baskets to the DPRK embassy in Cambodia on the 15th on the occasion of the 80th birth anniversary of the great leader Kim Jong Il.

Upon the authorization of the King and the Great Queen, a delegation of the Royal Ministry of the Government of the Kingdom of Cambodia led by Kong Sam Ol, Deputy Prime Minister for the Royal Palace, laid the floral baskets before the smiling portraits of the great leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and paid respects to them.
https://kcnawatch.org/newstream/1645185 ... n-cambodia

February 24, 2022
Report on N Korea spy in Cambodia was from a leaked draft, UNSC says

The United Nations Security Council has informed the Cambodian representative to the UN that a report claiming a North Korean spy ran businesses in Cambodia as late as mid-2020 was a draft which had leaked before it was approved for publication.

The story first appeared in a February 15 article North Korean spy ran hotels, casinos and travel agency in Cambodia: UN report posted by NK News, an American website publishing news and analysis on North Korea.

This goes against the Cambodian government’s report to the UN in January 2020 which said it had shuttered all businesses run by North Koreans in the Kingdom, in line with UN sanctions against that country over its nuclear and missile programmes.

The writer Ethan Jewell, a Seoul-based correspondent, wrote that a UN report revealed that a North Korean national named Kim Chol Sok had used a false name “Sok Kha” to run numerous businesses including travel agencies, restaurants and bar, hotels, casino and travel agencies for his country’s top spy agency the Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB).
...
In the latest update, on Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry released a clarification by the Panel of Experts of UNSC to Cambodia’s Permanent Mission to the UN which claimed that the report used by NK News was a leaked draft.

In the letter, a UNSC representative expressed his or her frustration over the document being received by a media outlet before it was verified and approved by the Security Council.

“The report remains confidential; it is still in draft form, and is currently under review by the member states on the 1718 Committee before its formal submission to the Security Council late next week,” the representative said in the letter.
“I would like to stress that no one on the Panel has spoken to the media about the content of our report; neither have we shared any part of it with the media.”
In full: https://www.khmertimeskh.com/501030559/ ... unsc-says/