Being a diplomat for the world’s most undiplomatic regime must be an odd job. North Korea’s foreign service officers posted in the country’s embassies abroad don’t do much of the feel-good factory tours and rubber chicken dinner hobnobbery that characterize the daily lives of most countries’ ambassadors.

Instead, North Korea’s diplomats are more like mafioso, charged, above all, with bringing in money for the regime. Each North Korean embassy is reportedly ordered to bring in a certain quota of foreign cash ? although its embassy in Rome appears more concerned with illegally importing luxury goods for the Kim regime to enjoy while its people suffer.

North Korean diplomats posted to European capitals are often involved in circulating counterfeit cash and black market cigarettes. In Africa, they’ve been busted smuggling rhino horns and ivory. The North Korean embassy in Beijing, which takes up an entire city block, even houses dormitories where waitresses at sanctions-busting North Korean-owned restaurants live.

Proponents of restarting engagement between North Korea and the United States have suggested opening diplomatic ties as a step the two sides could take to get what’s inevitably known as “the process” rolling along.

To open “liaison offices” ? embassies in all but name ? is thought of as a relatively modest step, much less drastic than, for instance, lifting sanctions. But given the activities of North Korea’s diplomats, that’s hardly the case. A North Korean embassy in the heart of Washington would inevitably become a locus of espionage and criminality.

Yet recent events in Madrid suggest that opponents of the regime may actually derive some benefit from North Korea’s embassies.