Macau Has no Plans to Unfreeze N.Korean Assets

The government of Macau has no plans to return North Korea’s frozen assets in the Banco Delta Asia based there to Pyongyang, it told the U.S. Treasury, even if Washington drops the bank from a list of “primary money laundering concerns.”

The U.S. Treasury said on the website of its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network this was the reading of official counsel for the Macau-based bank, the U.S. law firm Heller Ehrman, as stated on Oct. 18. “Although the government has expressed no view to us, recent measures taken by the United Nations likely will provide the government of Macau with a stronger basis for continuing to hold the funds," the letter said referring to UN Security Council sanctions after Pyongyang tested a nuclear weapon the same month.

Following the freeze on dealings with the bank in September last year, BDA promised the U.S. government in letters in February and April this year to conduct no transactions with North Korea. The Macau government asked BDA to tell the U.S. government that it will keep these funds frozen “as long as legally possible.” Macau anticipates that the decision is at least a year away regardless of any lawsuits that may be brought. That means North Korea has little hope of seeing the US$24 million it has in the bank any time soon, even if the U.S. lifts the sanction.

An official in Macau’s financial management bureau on Tuesday confirmed that the territory is not considering unfreezing the North Korean account, saying the U.S. merely identified the bank as a money laundering channel but it was the Macau government that froze the North Korean assets.

(englishnews@chosun.com )

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