Last September, authorities in Macao froze all North Korean accounts with BDA, worth some $25 million, at the request of the United States over counterfeiting and money laundering accusations against the Communist regime.
"As far as I know, the owners of the North Korean accounts in BDA are not included on any blacklists," Stanley Au said. "Not a government in the world either launched a trial against the accounts' owners or accused them of illegal activities."
He added that BDA has been doing business with North Korea for decades, and that he has always been sure they were ordinary "business transactions."
North Korea's accounts in BDA were unfrozen early last week, but the parties involved have so far failed to find a way of returning the money to North Korea, as foreign banks have refrained from working with BDA after the U.S. Treasury banned American financial institutions from conducting any transactions with the Macao bank.
The unsolved problem actually disrupted the sixth round of the six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear program, which were held in Beijing in mid-March. The participants agreed to resume their negotiations as soon as the situation with the North Korean accounts had been settled.
