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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| North Korea suspected of reinsurance fraud |
| 2006-12-05 |
| The cash-strapped regime of North Korea, which has a worldwide reputation for its criminal dealings in weapons sales, drugs and near-perfect counterfeit U.S. $100 bills, may have found a new illicit source of hard foreign currency: international reinsurance fraud. A growing number of major underwriters around the world strongly suspect that communist dictator Kim Jong-Il's regime is running an elaborate major insurance and reinsurance scam on them, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars or more. The alleged fraud involves a wide variety of North Korean industrial and personal calamities where insurers have been presented with perfect government-controlled documentation of accidents, including deaths, along with carefully gathered photographic evidence, all compiled in a startlingly brief time. That paperwork is coupled with a resistance to letting foreign insurance adjusters examine some of the most crucial physical evidence, except after long delays and under a watchful eye, if at all. Suspicions in London began to gel in July 2005, when North Korea reported that a medical rescue helicopter had crashed into a government-owned warehouse that authorities said was crammed with disaster relief supplies. The entire contents of the warehouse, which ran to hundreds of thousands of items, were destroyed, KNIC said, submitting within 10 days a list compiled by the relief center of every single commodity that it said had been lost. In the case of a ferry accident that allegedly took place last April, North Korean authorities declared that 129 people had died aboard the vessel after it struck a rock about 1,000 yards off the Korean coast, and only about 100 yards from an island. All of them, the Koreans claim, had been automatically covered with life insurance when they bought their ferry ticket. Here the claims from reinsurers totaled about 5 million euros, or roughly $6 million. When insurers asked for permission to send an independent diver to inspect the ferry wreck, they were refused. Britain's Foreign Office says the lack of firm proof of fraud is why it hasn't taken action on the reinsurance issue, although British diplomats say they are aware of it. But as the British government is trying to put limits on Kim Jong-Il's nuclear weapons program, the lack of an official British reaction could also be an attempt not to rock the boat, as well as to protect its diplomatic presence in Pyongyang. |
| Posted by:Pappy |
| #17 Who would have ever imagined a stand up guy like 'Lil Kim would run a scam? ROFLMFAO! Any dumb bastard that would insure a Nork asset deserves to be scammed! A fool and his money had no business being together in the first place! |
| Posted by: Mike N. 2006-12-05 18:48 |
| #16 Until Bush came along, yes. Until Bush came along, even the US Sec State was on the NorKie dance card. Until Bush came along, China didn't get the credit due for being this mongrel's bitch. |
| Posted by: .com 2006-12-05 18:02 |
| #15 Don't laugh, but StrategyPage says this scam has already brought in over $100 million. |
| Posted by: ed 2006-12-05 18:01 |
| #14 Lets see.. drug trafficking, kidnapping, counterfeiting, now insurance fraud.. And this criminal enterprise is considered a sovereign state? A legitimate government? The United States of America actually sends diplomatic envoys to negotiate with these criminals? |
| Posted by: john 2006-12-05 17:58 |
| #13 Lol. That's a classic. |
| Posted by: .com 2006-12-05 15:32 |
| #12 It's almost like...he's always got a loophole. We want to see the damage, he says pay up or he'll kill us. He doesn't fill out the forms, we complain, he says pay up or he'll kill us. We want to talk to witnesses, he says they're all dead and to pay up or we'll be dead too. You think he was a friggin dictator or something. What an asshole... |
| Posted by: Mutual of Pyongyang 2006-12-05 15:30 |
| #11 I figure Kimmie would be hell-on-wheels if Amway could entroll him. Think of his downstream...... Everyone who has his picture would spring for at least 2 cans of room deodorizer a month. Profit! |
| Posted by: Shipman 2006-12-05 15:04 |
| #10 Actually, this sort of thing is good news. It shows the pathetic means the North Koreans are having to resort to. I mean, what kind of government funds itself with insurance scams? Most of them just raise taxes. |
| Posted by: gromky 2006-12-05 11:05 |
| #9 The central focus of concern is the absolute control of ownership and information in North Korea by Kim Jong-Il and his regime. All North Korean insurance is controlled by one state-owned firm, the Korea National Insurance Corporation (KNIC), formerly known as the Korea Foreign Insurance Company, which in turn purchases reinsurance coverage abroad for risks that it has {purportedly] assumed in its domestic market. Normally, most domestic insurers will use one, or at most two firms of brokers to obtain reinsurance. KNIC may use many, according to industry sources, and the brokers may well have no idea what business their colleagues are doing, or in what reinsurance markets. |
| Posted by: Mike 2006-12-05 10:00 |
| #8 D. All of the above! |
| Posted by: Spot 2006-12-05 08:38 |
| #7 Next up - North Korean e-mail scammers... |
| Posted by: Raj 2006-12-05 07:52 |
| #6 Oh my, the Norks are inventive little b*****ds, aren't they? |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2006-12-05 07:32 |
| #5 What sort of idiot would____________? Jimmuh Carta? |
| Posted by: GK 2006-12-05 00:47 |
| #4 What about compensation for my case of Hennessy that fell off the truck? |
| Posted by: Lil Kim 2006-12-05 00:43 |
| #3 What sort of idiot would have "diplomatic presence in Pyongyang"? |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2006-12-05 00:41 |
| #2 what sort of idiot would pay off on this scam when prevented from inspecting the evidence? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-12-05 00:37 |
| #1 What sort of idiot would insure anything in a socialist statist dictatorship like North Korea? |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-12-05 00:33 |