Allegations of North Korean (Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK) drug production, drug trafficking, and other crime-for-profit activities have been an issue of concern for Congress, the Administration, the media, and the diplomatic community. The issue is twofold. First is general U.S. interest in halting criminal behavior (upholding the rule of law and protecting U.S. citizens and assets from illicit activity). Second is how to deal with a government suspected of countenancing or sponsoring activity that may threaten U.S. diplomatic and security interests. A challenge facing policy makers is how to balance pursuing anti-drug, counterfeiting, and crime policies vis-à-vis North Korea against effectively pursuing other high-priority U.S. foreign policy objectives, including (1) limiting possession and production of weapons of mass destruction, (2) limiting ballistic missile production and export, (3) curbing terrorism, and (4) addressing humanitarian needs. A core issue is whether the income from the DPRK's reportedly widespread criminal activity has financed the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction and has strengthened the DPRK's ability to maintain, until recently, truculent, no-compromise positions on the issue of its nuclear weapons program. Some also speculate that the DPRK's criminal smuggling networks could help facilitate the illicit movement of nuclear materials in and out of the country. U.N. Resolution 1718 (2006) provides for economic sanctions against persons or entities engaged in or providing support for, including through illicit means, DPRK's nuclear-related, other weapons of mass destruction-related and ballistic missile-related programs. Counterfeiting, copyright and trademark violations, and other illicit activity occur in virtually all countries of the world, but in the North Korean case, numerous sources indicate that the state apparently had—and may continue to be—sponsoring some of these activities. In this view, if the DPRK is to join the larger international community of nations, it would be expected to cease state-sponsorship of such activities and to take appropriate measures against private parties engaged in such production and/or distribution. As the Six-Party Talks on North Korea's nuclear program have proceeded in 2008, it appears that the U.S. goal of denuclearization has outweighed concerns related to DPRK illicit activity (with the exception of proliferation of nuclear weapons technology and materials). Such illicit activity by North Korea, however, could resurface as the Six-Party process proceeds and attention turns toward normalizing diplomatic ties with the DPRK by the United States, Japan, and South Korea and allowing North Korea to join international financial institutions such as the Asian Development Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. The role of Congress in this issue includes overseeing U.S. policy, eliciting information and raising public awareness of the issue, and balancing U.S. interests when foreign policy goals may conflict with anti-crime activities. Congress also authorizes and appropriates funds for humanitarian and other economic assistance for North Korea. Areas of DPRK criminal activity commonly cited have included production and trafficking in (1) heroin and methamphetamine; (2) counterfeit cigarettes; (3) counterfeit pharmaceuticals (e.g., "USA" manufactured Viagra®); and (4) counterfeit currency (e.g., U.S. $100 bill "supernotes"). Media reports also have indicated that North Korea may be engaged in insurance fraud, endangered species trafficking, and human trafficking as a matter of state policy. News reporting on the subject reached its height in 2003, when the Bush Administration was activity raising the issue of DPRK's crime-for-profit activities at the highest levels. Since then, fewer public reports have surfaced to indicate that DPRK illicit activities are continuing. At the same time, no public reports indicate that DPRK has completely halted its crime-for-profit activities. In 2008, the State Department reports that while DPRK's drug trafficking appears to have declined substantially, "DPRK-tolerance of criminal behavior may exist on a larger, organized scale, even if no large-scale narcotics trafficking incidents involving the state itself have come to light." The estimated aggregate scale of DPRK's crime-for-profit activity has been and may still be significant—and arguably provides important foreign currency resources to the heavily militarized North Korean state. DPRK crime-for-profit activities are reportedly orchestrated by a special office charged with bringing in foreign currency under the direction of the ruling Korean Worker's Party. North Korean drug trafficking, trade in counterfeit products, and the counterfeiting of U.S. currency, to the extent that it does indeed exist, have been a matter of concern in Asian, European, and U.S. law enforcement, foreign policy, and national security communities. At least 50 documented incidents, over decades, many involving arrest or detention of North Korean diplomats, have linked North Korea to drug trafficking. Such activity, particularly production and trafficking of methamphetamine and trade in counterfeit cigarettes, appears to be continuing. With the caveat that dollar value estimates of clandestine activities are highly speculative, conservative estimates suggest North Korean criminal activity generates as much as $500 million in profit per year, with some estimates reaching the $1 billion level. One recent economic study by Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, however, places current illicit activity at a much lower level and considers the lower end of the various published estimates of profit as the upper bound. For example, the Haggard/Noland study estimates drug trafficking in 2005-2006 at about $20 to $35 million. In contrast, the (South) Korea Institute for Defense Analysis reportedly stated that North Korea earns between $700 million and $1 billion per year from exporting weapons and trading drugs and counterfeit money. In 2003, an official from U.S. Forces Korea reportedly stated that North Korea's annual revenue from exports of illegal drugs was estimated at $500 million and from counterfeit bills at $15 to $20 million. The official also stated that in 2001, North Korea exported ballistic missiles worth $580 million to the Middle East. More recently, some sources report that North Korea has been exporting conventional military weapons to Burma (Myanmar) in contravention to current U.N. prohibitions against North Korea. One basis for the $500 million to $1 billion figure for illicit exports is that it can be inferred from international trade data and from reported anecdotes that markets in Pyongyang have ample supplies of imported foreign goods. In 2004, North Korea is estimated to have incurred a trade deficit of $1.8 billion. This deficit rose to about $2.0 billion in 2005, dropped to an estimated $1.3 billion in 2006, and rose to an estimated $2.7 billion in 2007. Some of this imbalance is financed through food and other aid, capital inflows, borrowing, remittances from North Korean laborers working abroad (especially in Russia and the Middle East), and tourism. Pyongyang, however, does little borrowing on international markets, and Tokyo has been cracking down on remittances from ethnic North Koreans in Japan. Inflows of capital also seem small, although they are rising as China and South Korea invest in enterprises in the North. As a result, some surmise that in some years as much as $1 billion has been financed by illicit activity. There has been evidence to suggest that the North Korean government is supporting drug production and trafficking as a matter of state policy. Since 1976, North Korea has been linked to more than 50 verifiable incidents involving drug seizures in at least 20 countries. A significant number of these cases has involved arrest or detention of North Korean diplomats or officials. Concerns about North Korean drug trafficking and production were further expressed in the International Narcotics Control Board's 1997 annual report, which referred to such DPRK drug trafficking incident claims as "disquieting." In 1999, substantial seizures of North Korean methamphetamine occurred in Japan (35% of the total methamphetamine seizures in Japan that year). Large seizures of heroin and methamphetamine with a link to the DPRK have since occurred in Taiwan, and in April of 2003, the "Pong Su," a DPRK state enterprise-owned, sea-going vessel of around 4,000 metric tons apparently delivered a large quantity of DPRK-trafficked and also possible DPRK-origin heroin to Australia. Although members of the vessel's North Korean crew were subsequently acquitted on charges relating to the smuggling of the drugs, experts have little doubt of a North Korean connection to the drug shipment. Since 2003, however, no incidents definitively and directly linking the DPRK State apparatus to such drug trafficking activity have come to light. The State Department's March 1, 2008, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report states that drug trafficking with a connection to North Korea "appears to be down sharply and there have been no instances of drug trafficking suggestive of state-directed trafficking for five years." Many analysts suggest that any decline in DPRK state-linked drug trafficking activity would likely be in response to enhanced international attention paid to such activity in the wake of the April 2003 seizure of heroin carried on the North Korean Vessel the "Pong Su." Others, however, remain skeptical and offer an alternative explanation. They suggest that the decline in seizures is because North Korean source methamphetamine is now regularly being mistakenly identified as "Chinese source," given growing links of Chinese criminal elements to North Korea's drug production/trafficking activities. In line with such a conclusion are press reports in late 2006 of the arrests in China in differing locations of North Korean nationals involved with Chinese criminals in the trafficking of methamphetamine.