Anchor: Financial strains resulting from fresh international sanctions on North Korea are apparently causing North Korean diplomats to defect or face deportations. Around ten diplomats and other North Koreans posted in Northeast Asia, Europe and Africa were found to have been banished from the countries they were stationed in for engaging in illicit activities banned under UN Security Council resolutions. 
Our Bae Joo-yon has more.
 
Report: In March of this year, North Korea’s Ambassador to Myanmar Kim Sok-chol returned to the North.
 
Kim was a central figure in negotiating illegal arms deals between his country and Myanmar for nine years.
 
Just four months after the U.S. Treasury Department blacklisted him for alleged involvement in illegal weapons trade, Kim was virtually deported from Myanmar.

North Korean diplomats stationed in Vietnam and Egypt, which have traditionally maintained friendly ties with Pyongyang, have also returned to their homeland.
 
Just last week, the Bangladeshi government issued a deportation order against a North Korean diplomat who was caught trying to smuggle undeclared goods, including LED televisions, worth 200 million won into Bangladesh.
 
North Korean diplomats in Cuba were caught trying to smuggle cigars and those stationed in Africa were arrested for trafficking ivory.
 
Currently, more countries are said to be taking steps to banish North Korean diplomats.
 
Since the UN Security Council adopted fresh sanctions against the North in March, some ten North Korean diplomats and other North Koreans posted abroad are estimated to have left the countries they were stationed in, either voluntarily or in the form of deportation.
 
The North sought to open new diplomatic missions in the first half of the year but was rejected by the countries it was hoping to house the new missions in.
 
Kim Gwang-jin, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Strategy, says that there is a growing perception in the international community that North Korean diplomats’ acts of using their immunity status to engage in illicit activities will no longer be tolerated.
  
[Sound bite: Researcher Kim Gwang-jin - Institute for National Security Strategy (Korean)]
“North Korean diplomats have used their immunity status to engage in illegal activities and create slush funds. But now, they are facing obstacles. So, pressure is being applied to diplomats and people carrying out special duties.”
 
Currently, the North has a total of 47 diplomatic missions abroad. North Korean diplomats are said to be obligated to make twice the amount of the so-called “loyalty payments” to the government in Pyongyang compared to the previous Kim Jong-il regime.
 
Fears are said to be growing among diplomats over such payments as they will be summoned back home and face punishment if they fail to make the payments.
Bae Joo-yon, KBS World Radio News.