The hermit kingdom has business links to companies that are active in parts of Asia Africa, the Middle East and even Europe, according to an investigation.
Defence analyst Andrea Berger told BBC documentary ‘North Korea: Murder in the Family’: “Many have the view that North Korea’s actually extremely, extremely isolated from the international community, that it doesn’t have trade relations with the outside world, bar China, but the truth couldn’t be further from that.
“North Korea is very sophisticated in concealing the fact that it is, indeed, North Korea doing business overseas. It’s good at hiding in plain sight.”
Some of the funds from this network are channelled through a mysterious government department, known as Office 39, that operates as a kind of slush fund for Kim Jong-un’s family and the ruling elite to maintain its lavish lifestyle.
Ms Berger said Office 39 was just another department in the Korean Workers Party on paper but in practice it was the “ultimate slush fund”.
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She said: “It mixes both illicit and licit activity and creates that kind of support internally in North Korea to keep the leadership and the elite happy.”
It’s believed Office 39 brings in up to £1.2billion ($1.6bn) a year for the Kim family.
While the business network stretches as far as Europe, a particular hotspot is said to be Malaysia, where more than 1,000 North Koreans are said to be living and working.
Ms Berger told the BBC a North Korean military communications company called Glocom was run out of Malaysia.
She said: “Glocom was a network selling military communications out of Malaysia, marketing arms and related material overseas, pretending to be a Malaysian arms manufacturer but, indeed, was behind the scenes in North Korea, selling its technology to parts of Africa, the Middle East and potentially South East Asia.”
Former North Korean deputy ambassador to the UK, Thae Yong-Ho, described Malaysia as a “kind of paradise” for North Korea to expand its business.
He told the corporation: “Malaysia was regarded a kind of window for North Korea to go abroad because Malaysia is a visa-free country for North Korea.”
A former North Korean finance worker in Singapore, Kim Kwang-Jin, also revealed the insurance company he worked for sent money directly to the Kim family to fund the lifestyle of Pyongyang’s top brass.
He said: “That is Kim family economy. They are making foreign cash from these businesses.
“We make money and withdraw $20 million cash every year for Kim Jong-il’s birthday.
“We keep them, count them and put them in 20 boxes, $1million each.
“It was regarded as one of the best profitable organisations in North Korea, in Pyongyang.
“And we benefit, you know, enjoyed benefit for that.”
Ms Berger said the regime had even accessed the UK and the US.
She said: “North Korea’s national insurance company was able to operate in the UK.
“It’s not believed that North Korea has strong links in the conventional sense to the United States, but we have seen that North Korea is able to access products from the United States of America.
“Kim Jong-un’s motorcade was armoured in the United States and then re-exported to North Korea without, seemingly, the knowledge of US Customs authorities.”