Police bust cocaine ring at Russian Embassy
in Argentina
By Ray Downs 
Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich speaks during a press conference in Buenos Aires on February 22
after a policeman was arrested for trafficking 385 kilos of cocaine between Buenos Aires and Moscow.
Photo by David Fernández/EPA-EFE
UPI -- An international drug trafficking ring operating out of the Russian Embassy in Buenos Aires was dismantled and several arrests made, Argentine police announced on Thursday.
Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich said the arrests mark the end of a 14-month investigation that began in December 2016 when Russian Embassy officials found 850 pounds of cocaine stashed in 16 pieces of luggage and alerted Argentine police. The police then switched the cocaine with flour, inserted a tracking device and waited until the bags were moved.
The suspected traffickers attempted to move the bags several times, but weren't able to do so until December 2017, The New York Times reported. At that time, the bags were put on a plane to Moscow. Three Argentine customs officials traveled with the bags to monitor them.
When the bags arrived at the Moscow airport, two Russian men there to pick them up were arrested.
Two dual citizens of Russia and Argentina -- Ivan Blizniouk and Alexander Chikalo -- were also arrested, according to Argentine newspaper, Clarín. Blizniouk is a Buenos Aires police officer accused of facilitating the shipment to get through customs. Chikalo is suspected of handling the logistics.
Ali Abyanov, a former Russian embassy official in Buenos Aires, was arrested in Moscow on Thursday. He is suspected of being the contact person at the embassy for the cocaine shipment, which came from a person police only named as "Mr. K."
Mr. K remains at large and an international warrant was put out for his arrest.
North Korean agents demanding more bribes
from defector networks
By Elizabeth Shim
North Korea is increasingly targeting defector networks and siphoning funds meant for defector families.
Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo
UPI -- North Korea state security agents are increasingly profiting from money defectors in the South are wiring to their families, a sign bribery and corruption is rising among state authorities.
Brokers who are entrusted to transfer funds coming from South Korea to families in the North are being targeted and threatened, but North Korean security agents are willing to go easy on brokers if they obtain a greater cut of the funds, Daily NK reported Friday.
A source in North Hamgyong Province told the South Korean news service on Thursday authorities want more, and that for every $1,000 wired to the North, security agents take as much as $500 to enrich themselves, according to the report.
"As recently as two months ago the fee they asked was about 25-30 percent of funds being transferred from South Korea or China," the source said. "Now it is normal to ask for 40 percent."
The cut of money being pocketed by state authorities is rising because agents now have to send money to their senior supervisors as well, according to the report.
Most defectors in the South send money to their families in the North. According to the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights in Seoul, more than 60 percent of defectors in a 2016 survey said they have sent money to the North at least once.
About 30 percent said they send about $2,500 each time they make a transfer, and most said they send money once or twice a year.
It is unclear whether money transfers will become easier as détente continues on the peninsula.
South Korean news service OhMyNews reported Friday Pyongyang's decision to send Kim Yong Chol, the North Korean vice chairman of the ruling Workers' Party Central Committee, is a sign Kim Jong Un is prioritizing improved relations with the South over seeking immediate dialogue with the United States. Kim is to attend the Winter Olympics' closing ceremony on Sunday.
Latvian bank linked to N. Korea money laundering ordered closed
By Allen Cone
Pedestrians walk past a branch of the Norvik bank in Riga, Latvia, on Wednesday. The European Central Bank on Saturday announced the bank, which has been linked to accusations of money laundering involving North Korea, would close.
Photo by Valda Kalnina/EPA
UPI -- The European Central Bank on Saturday announced it plans to close a Latvian bank linked to claims of money laundering involving North Korea.
The European regulator said Latvia's third-largest lender, ABLV Bank, was "failing or likely to fail" and its assets will be wound up, meaning they will liquidated, and they will be taken over by the laws of Latvia and Luxembourg, where one branch is located.
Earlier the central bank froze ABLV payments after an exodus of withdrawals. Latvia's representative on the ECB Governing Council, Ilmars Rimsevics, was released Monday after being detained on bribery allegations. Investigators are looking in whether he sought a bribe of $124,100.
More than $700 million in deposits and securities -- 18 percent of its liabilities at end-September -- were withdrawn after the U.S. Treasury described the bank's practices as "institutionalized money laundering." It added that the bank helped fund the North Korean missile program. Most of the bank's customers were shell companies registered outside Latvia, the Treasury Department said.
Although ABLV said it raised more than $1.67 billion, over four business days, the ECB said it lacked adequate cash liquidity. It referred the lender to Europe's Single Resolution Board.
"The bank is likely unable to pay its debts or other liabilities as they fall due," the ECB said in a statement on Saturday in Frankfurt, Germany. "The bank did not have sufficient funds which are immediately available to withstand stressed outflows of deposits before the payout procedure of the Latvian deposit-guarantee fund starts."
The bank said the allegations are politically motivated.
"It was absolutely sufficient for the bank to resume executing payments and meet all obligations toward its clients," ABLV said in a statement. "Yet due to political considerations the bank was not given a chance to do it."
Peters Putnins, who's also a member of the ECB's supervisory board, said officials don't anticipate tapping into nation's deposit insurance fund for payouts that must be started no later than March 7.
"Taxpayers don't have to worry: the bank itself will make these payments with its own resources," Putnins told reporters.
I thought they had insufficient resources? Hmmm.
Deposits of as much as $123,000 are protected under Latvian and Luxembourg laws.
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