An estimated 40,000 North Koreans are working in Russia under forced labor conditions, according to the United States Department of State.

The men and women are primarily working in the logging industry.

Source:  US Department of State, “Country Narratives: Russia,” Trafficking in Persons Report 2010, June 2010.

According to the New York Times, the number of people who defected from North Korea in 2009 was nearly 3,000. The figure has risen for the previous ten years.

Source:  Sharon LaFraniere, “Views of North Korea Show How a Policy Spread Misery,” New York Times, June 9, 2010.

After escaping from North Korea, women are often taken in by human traffickers where they are sold for $1,500. The women are usually sold either to elderly farmers as a wife or to Internet Sex Shows operators.

More than 90 percent of women who escape North Korea and enter China end up being bought or sold.

Source:  AFP, “N.Korean women up for sale in China: activist,” Google News, May 13, 2010.

South Korea’s National Human Rights Commission found that 20 percent of women in refugee camps bribes North Korean guards with either sex or money in order to defect from the country.

Source:  AFP, “N.Korea women refugees suffer abuse: watchdog,” Google News, February 22, 2010.

North Korea is estimated to earn up to $1 Billion a year from illegal arms trafficking.

Source:  Simon Tisdall, “North Korean plane carrying smuggled arms seized in Thailand,” Guardian, December 13, 2009.

In some regions of China, between 2 to 4 percent of US $100 bills in circulation are fake.  These counterfeit dollars are produced in North Korea and enter China through black market currency brokers.

Source:  David Samuels, “Counterfeiting: Notes on a scandal,” Independent, August 24, 2009.

North Korea earns an estimated $720 Million dollars a year from the production and selling of counterfeit cigarettes.

Source:  David Rose, “North Korea’s Dollar Store,” Vanity Fair, August 5, 2009.

Newsweek reported that North Korea earns around $100 million a year selling missiles to countries such as Iran, Syria, and Pakistan.

Source:  “How Kim Affords His Nukes,” Newsweek, May 30, 3009.

In 2005, available estimates of the North Korean drug trade placed opium production at 44 tons a year.

Source: Matthew Quirk, “The world in numbers: The New Opium War,” The Atlantic Monthly, March 2005, pg. 52-53.

Citizens of North Korea attempting to be smuggled out of the country and into China pay brokers between $2,000 to $10,000.

Source:  Sarah Buckley, “Escaping North Korea,” BBC News, July 28, 2004.