North Korea finds itself embroiled in scandal yet again and this one might be more tedious than ever—apparently diplomats aren’t paying their parking tickets.
An investigation by New York NBC’s I-Team uncovered a cavalcade of unpaid fines dating back to the 1990s. The total amount numbers 1,300 parking tickets while the total debt sum is more than $156,000. Any other living person in New York would see jail time at just one unpaid parking ticket.
This violates a 2002 memorandum of understanding (MOU) between New York City and the US Department of State. If a vehicle with a diplomatic parking decal has three or more unpaid tickets, that document states that the City can withhold the decal.
In a stunning turn of events, North Korean diplomats denied the allegations when confronted by a New York NBC reporter.
“It’s not true,” Jong Jo, secretary of North Korea’s UN mission, said. “It is false. Whenever we have a ticket, we pay. Because, you know, if we have three tickets the city does not allow us to renew their permission.”
North Korea is far from the only country with unpaid parking ticket debt. The I-Team investigation discovered that since the 1990s there is more than $16 million in unpaid fine from a multitude of countries.
Here are the biggest offenders:
- Syria, with $362,550 in parking debt
- Iran, with $184,987 in parking debt
- Russia, with $104,231 in parking debt
- China, with $398,736 in parking debt
While those numbers are egregious and likely would infuriate most New Yorkers, it’s also kind of hilarious. Not only are most political leaders from around the world inept at confronting the complexities of our modern world, they can’t even pay their parking tickets on time.
