Your Cheap Salmon Could Be Paying for North Korea's Nuclear Weapons

This article originally appeared on MUNCHIES.

If you're a frequent Walmart shopper, seeing a "Made in China" sticker on whatever you toss in your cart isn't exactly a surprise. But if you've bought a bag of frozen seafood at Walmart, one with small print that reads, "Caught in the USA, Processed in China," then a percentage of the purchase price might've gone straight to the North Korean government.

According to an exhaustive investigation by the Associated Press, a number of North Korean workers are employed by seafood factories in China—factories that process frozen shrimp, salmon, and cod that is imported by American companies and sold at Walmart and ALDI.

The import of any products made or processed by North Korean workers is illegal in the United States. Not only does the North Korean government seize an estimated 70 percent of workers' salaries—money that may be spent to further develop its nuclear weapons and missile programs—the workers are forced to do their jobs in deplorable conditions that the US government describes as "modern day slavery."

"If a North Korean wants to go overseas, China is his or her least favorable option," North Korea expert Andrei Lankov told the AP. "Because in China, [factories] have essentially prison-like conditions."

The fish processing factories that were identified by the AP are in Hunchun, China, a city in northeast China that borders North Korea and Russia. An estimated 3,000 North Koreans have been contracted to work in Hunchun and, after Kim Jong-Un's government takes its sizeable percentage of their salaries, they each make around 46 cents per hour. North Korea has sent "tens of thousands" of its citizens to work in other countries, forced labor that brings in between US $200 million and $500 million for the government. (Despite the Hunchun workers' meager earnings, they're still more than the $1 per month that the average North Korean worker takes home).

The Associated Press named three facilities that both employ North Koreans and export frozen seafood to the United States; more than 2,000 tons of frozen entrees and appetizers from these factories has already been imported by the US and Canada this year. Some of it was shipped in generic packaging, but some of it was already bagged and branded Walmart or Sea Queen, which is sold at ALDI.

"As we shared in detail with the Associated Press, we audited and investigated this facility and, gave it a Red rating earlier this year for failing to cooperate with the investigation, which means that suppliers cannot use the facility to produce products for sale by Walmart," Walmart spokesperson Marilee McInnis told MUNCHIES. "The welfare and dignity of workers is very important to us, and we are working in several ways to help combat the use of forced labor in global supply chains. We have a system in place to assess suppliers' disclosed factories for compliance with our Standards and take appropriate action when we do identify issues that need to be addressed."

McInnis explained that Walmart is a core member of the Leadership Group for Responsible Recruitment, the Seafood Task Force, and has invested in the Issara Institute to improve anti-trafficking work in the Southeast Asia seafood supply chain. MUNCHIES has also reached out to ALDI and Sea-Trek, a Rhode Island based company that imports seafood from the Hunchun facilities.

On Thursday, US Customs and Border Protection said that it would take steps to "prohibit goods" from these and other Chinese factories that employ North Korean workers.