Despite his sleepless nights, Kim somehow finds a way to stump up the cash to pay for his nuclear ambitions.

“North Korea is extremely capable at evading sanctions and at any restrictions that are put on their processes,” says Cristina Varriale, a proliferation and nuclear policy research analyst at the Royal United Services Institute think tank.

Though many countries refuse to do business with the state, it still manages to export commodities such as iron ore, nickel and rare earth minerals to its neighbor, China. It also exports forced labor, with the U.N. estimating that these human slaves—who have been found in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe—earn the country from $1.2 billion to $2.3 billion a year.