America Prosecuted A Series Of Koreans And Chinese For Money Laundering
US Department of Justice on
28 May prosecutes 28 Koreans and 5 Chinese for allegedly operating a money
laundering line, which has transferred billions of dollars to global banks to
avoid Pyongyang sanctions.
The network has brought
more than $ 2.5 billion through more than 250 frontier companies across
Thailand, Libya, Australia, Russia, China and Kuwait to avoid sanctions and
purchase goods for North Korea and enrichment for those involved, under an
indictment filed in a federal court in Washington.
Most of the prosecutors
were involved in a network of "disguised" branches of the Bank for
Foreign Trade of Korea, of which two were the president of the bank, including
Ko Chol Man and Kim Song Ui, with two vice presidents.
These people are accused of
using frontline companies to obscure transactions through bank networks across
the United States. This activity violates US sanctions on Foreign Trade
Bank and other North Korean organizations.
The indictment said that
the network operated from 2013 to this year, and the people involved had
"concealed the involvement of the Foreign Trade Bank in payments using US
dollars to deceive banks into dealing with the issue."
During that time, the US
confiscated about $ 63 million.
The indictment had no
information on how North Korea made that money, saying only that the money was
used to buy from luxury goods to things that serve its nuclear weapons
program.
In recent years, North
Korea has struggled with tough sanctions imposed by the United Nations in most
commercial and financial activities, in order to make it unable to develop
nuclear weapons.
"Through this indictment, the US has shown its commitment to prevent North Korea from illegally accessing the US financial system, and restricting the ability to use the proceeds from these illegal activities to promote weapons, gas of mass destruction."
Michael Sherwin, Washington
state prosecutor, said in a statement.
This is the most personal prosecution
of Pyongyang that the US has ever done.
However, the prosecution is only "impersonal" because none of them were arrested or had to go to court.
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