Speed it up: is North Korea plying skyscraper builders with crystal meth?
Speed it up: is North Korea plying skyscraper builders with crystal meth?
Residents resort to graffiti to protest harsh working conditions in a showcase property project
Under immense pressure to complete a skyscraper project on schedule, project managers in North Korea are allegedly plying construction workers with illicit drugs.
To finish a 70-floor skyscraper in Pyongyang, builders are being made to take a derivative of the stimulant compound methamphetamine, according to reports.
“Project managers are now openly providing drugs to construction workers so that they will work faster,” a source told Radio Free Asia.
Some residents have anonymously protested the harsh conditions by scrawling graffiti on an unfinished building: “Pyongyang speed is drug speed.”
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The skyscraper, which will offer more than 60 apartment blocks upon completion, is being developed by the North Korean government in defiance of international sanctions over its involvement with nuclear weaponry.
“The North Korean government wants to finish these buildings to somehow prove that they are a developed country,” Phil Robertson, Asia director for Human Rights Watch, told The Telegraph.
Earlier this year, residents in Yanggang province were forced to submit handwriting samples after the discovery of several graffiti targeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Production of methamphetamine has been a dependable source of government revenue since the 1970s.
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Source: Property Report