By LAWRENCE TAN
Amid reports of a battle with pancreatic cancer, it seems
that there’s yet more bad news for North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Il.
The enigmatic 68-year-old dictator of the isolated nation
has had two luxury yachts valued at 13 million euros impounded by Italian
police in Viareggio. The yachts were seized before they could be shipped to
China.
An international trade embargo prohibits luxury goods from
being imported into North Korea.
Italian newspaper Libero-News reports that Italian police
working with Austrian authorities in a secret operation codenamed Flybridge,
tracked the records of the purchase to Kim after an Austrian businessman
aroused their suspicion after having paid cash to build the yachts, and then
transferred the titles to a Chinese company.
The yachts will most likely be auctioned off, and the money
paid up has been frozen. The newspaper says the operation doesn’t end here,
with police still investigating other channels through which the North Korean
leader might have acquired luxury goods from Italy and the rest of Europe.
That’s what you get for belligerent nuclear missile testing
and becoming the political persona non grata of the international community.
via IBI Magazine / Libero-News