▲ Oh Kwang Chul, president of the Korea Trade Bank (NK) ⓒ Yonhap News

Oh Kwang Chul, president of the Korea Trade Bank (NK) and chief delegate of North Korea in ‘Banco Delta Asia financial sanctions working group,’ was once caught for smuggling 2 million dollars in France in 1992.

According to the Donga Ilbo’s report on February 12, 1993, Oh, director at the Chosun Foreign Trade Bank’s Paris branch at that time, was carrying 2 million dollars cash in a traveler’s bag at Paris Charles de Gaulle international airport in October, 1992, when French customs caught Oh and took him into custodyc.

In 1992, French regulation on foreign currency required prior-declaration for carry out of more than fifty thousands francs. Oh violated the rule and paid two hundred thousands dollars fine.

A former defector O, who had worked in North Korea’s trade and finance departments, confirmed the fact that president Oh had served for the North Korean state bank in Paris. O knew president Oh well and described him as one of the most talented bureaucrats in North Korea’s trade and financial affairs, along with Paik Hyun Bong chairman of the Foreign Economic Cooperation Committee and Kim Hyung Nam, head manager of Chollima Steel Kombinat.

President Oh is born in 1959, graduated from National Economics Institute in Pyongyang and studied in Russia. He was promoted to the Korea Trade Bank’s after 2000, in a wave of shift in generation in the government.

Oh was elected representative of the Supreme People’s Assembly in 2003 and participated in the UN Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva, Swtizerland in 2005.

Korea Trade Bank provides financial services for foreign trade in North Korea, such as settlement, foreign currency exchange, certification of payment for trade companies and decides exchange rates.