Earlier this year, the U.N. Panel of Experts reported that at least four restaurants and one night market tied to North Korea remain in operation in Laos even after authorities there took measures to close them. The report added that DPRK nationals have also been working “as waitresses and dance performers” at the establishments despite an earlier deadline to repatriate them.

The revelation of this activity, while small in the grand scheme of North Korea’s initiatives to earn foreign currency abroad, served to underline its continuing ties with the small socialist state in Southeast Asia that go back decades.