convergence

Miklaucic and Naím
that would benefit its members tremendously, but threaten the stability of West Africa and
eventually the world.” 43
During his administration, Taylor incorporated the security services, state administration
agencies, natural resource management, and the economic and financial organs of the state into
a criminal enterprise. This is not a case of corrupt officials presiding over criminal enterprises
that operate outside the reach of the state, but the transformation of the state into a criminal
enterprise with no other purpose than its criminal agenda. Under Taylor, the customs and immigration
services and passport agency supported the international transit of known criminals
in league with Taylor and his accomplices. They were also critical in making Liberia a meeting
place and safe haven for terrorists, criminals, insurgents, and the like. The shipping and aircraft
registries were used to provide cover for criminal air and seafaring fleets transporting all manner
of contraband. In the words of the late Liberian journalist Tom Kamara, Taylor created “a
criminal state with the capacity of extending its wings around West Africa and beyond. Illegal
passports issuance, money laundering, the proliferation of dubious banks, and drug trafficking
are finding an accommodating environment in Liberia.” 44 It is the fusion of the state with the
illicit networks comprised of insurgent groups (such as the Revolutionary United Front), transnational
terrorist organizations (such as al Qaeda), and transnational criminal organizations
that distinguish the criminal state. Taylor’s Liberia became “a functioning criminal enterprise
while continuing to enjoy—and use for illegal purposes—many of the international benefits
of statehood (e.g., the ability to issue recognized diplomatic passports, maintain shipping and
airplane registries, control border entry and exit points, and collect taxes.” 45
North Korea
Perhaps the most extreme example of a criminal state is the People’s Democratic Republic of
Korea (DPRK). The DPRK government is reportedly directly involved in a wide range of
transnational criminal activities sanctioned at the very highest level of the state, and implicating
officials at all levels. These activities include illicit drug production and trafficking, foreign
currency counterfeiting, trafficking in counterfeit cigarettes and pharmaceuticals, insurance
fraud, and trafficking in humans, among others. Estimates of the illicit revenues from these
activities range from $500 million to $1 billion per year. 46 What is distinctive about North
Korea is the degree to which the state apparatus has been converted to criminal enterprise.
This conversion involves the DPRK diplomatic service, the security services, many organs of
public administration, the public manufacturing and agricultural sectors, state-owned trading
companies, and unique state organs established explicitly for the purpose of criminal activity.
The criminalization of the North Korean state has taken place over a long period. As
early as 1976, 17 North Korean diplomats were expelled from Norway, Sweden, Denmark,
and Finland for trafficking in black market cigarettes, liquor, and hashish. According to the
Danish Prime Minister, their actions were not for personal gain, implying that the actions were
sanctioned by their masters in Pyongyang. 47 With the discontinuation of substantial subsidies
from the defunct Soviet Union in 1991, followed by deteriorating economic conditions and
the famine of 1994–1998, and perhaps influenced by the leadership succession from Kim Il
Sung to Kim Jong Il in 1994, state criminalization appears to have accelerated throughout
the 1990s. Perl, writing in 2004, stated, “Since 1976, North Korea has been linked to over
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