A special task force in Pyongyang has arrested the manager of a foreign currency store and a trade official accused of smuggling luxury brands such as Chanel and Rolex into the country and secretly selling them to the wives of high-ranking officials, in a case that has since widened into a bribery scandal implicating local police officials.
A Daily NK source in Pyongyang said Tuesday that the Special Joint Group for Eradicating Non-Socialist Practices, a task force organized under central party instructions to monitor illicit foreign currency dealing and luxury consumption trends in the capital, raided a foreign currency store in Pyongyang’s Taesong district on July 11 after months of internal investigation, catching the manager and a trade official on the scene.
According to the source, the store manager had built out informal channels to bring in luxury goods such as Chanel and Rolex products to meet demand among Pyongyang’s elite, then sold them to the wives of high-ranking officials, pocketing substantial amounts of foreign currency in the process. A trade official who colluded with the manager reportedly used his position, which gave him authority over customs clearance procedures, to help smuggle high-end luxury items into a secret storage room inside the shop.
When the task force raided the store in mid-July, officers found bags of undeclared dollar and yuan cash bundles that hadn’t been hidden in time, along with smuggled goods that had never been entered into the store’s books, and confiscated everything on the spot. The manager and the trade official, both present at the time, were taken into custody without any chance to resist, the source said.
Bribery scandal widens to police officials
As the task force investigated the case, it uncovered a pattern of corruption among Taesong district police department officials who had been protecting the store manager in exchange for bribes, and the fallout from the case has continued to grow since, according to the source. Task force members reportedly raided the Taesong district police department itself, seizing documents and arresting officials on the spot, and word of the case has since spread across Pyongyang, unsettling the capital’s elite circles.
“After this surprise crackdown at the heart of Pyongyang, power organs are in considerable disarray as police officials who were colluding with the ringleaders keep getting hauled away one after another, an unprecedented situation,” the source said.
The source added that ordinary Pyongyang residents and lower-ranking officials who have learned of the case have also been shaken, and are watching the fallout in stunned silence as senior officials once seen as untouchable suddenly find themselves facing prosecution.
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