U.S. advises enhanced precaution against N. K.

The Treasury Department on Thursday advised U.S. financial institutions to take enhanced precautions against North Korea and several other countries trying to launder money and engage in other illicit financial transactions, according to Yonhap News.

In an advisory, the department`s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said, "U.S. financial institutions should apply enhanced due diligence... when maintaining correspondent accounts for foreign banks operating under a banking license issued by Angola, DPRK, Ecuador, and Ethiopia."

DPRK is North Korea`s official name, the Democratic People`s Republic of Korea.

The advisory said this was to "inform banks and other financial institutions operating in the United States of the risks associated with jurisdictions identified by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on February 18 as having deficiencies in their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist (AML/CFT) financing regimes."

The FATF statement was issued last month in response to the call by the leaders of the G-20 economic summit for the FATF to reinvigorate its process for assessing the compliance of 35 member countries with international AML/CFT standards and to identify high risk jurisdictions.

U.N. financial sanctions, slapped on Pyongyang after its nuclear and missile tests early last year, call for an overall arms embargo on North Korea except for light weapons or small arms, and imposes financial sanctions to prevent the flow of funds that could benefit North Korea`s missile, nuclear or any other proliferation activities.