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.