Tag: smuggling

The North Koreans will be very unhappy with this news:

A New York court has formally handed the US ownership of a North Korean cargo ship seized for violating international sanctions, the Justice Department said.

The 17,061 ton bulk carrier Wise Honest — the first North Korean vessel seized by Washington for sanctions violations — was caught carrying a $3 million shipment of coal in Indonesian waters last year and later handed over to US authorities.

The court in the Southern District of New York ordered the vessel to be forfeited to Washington and for the Treasury Department to “dispose of” it, an order released by the Justice Department showed.

The sale process has already taken place, according to the US Coast Guard, which earlier this month said the ship had been auctioned in a court-ordered process.

AFP

You can read more at the link, but seizing the Kim’s regime ships caught smuggling and then selling them off is an idea I have long advocated for.

“The [Mercedes] cars traveled by ship for 41 days to Dalian…then put on a ship for Osaka…to Busan…Then came the most mysterious part of the passage. The containers were transferred within one day of arrival to…a cargo ship sailing under the flag of Togo,” for Nakhodka, RU https://t.co/DmPxWvpTtH

— Sung-Yoon Lee (@SungYoonLee1) July 16, 2019

It is pretty amazing that the Egyptians had the nerve to accept $300 million in military aid from the United States and then turn around purchase $23 million in contraband arms from the North Koreans:

Last August, a secret message was passed from Washington to Cairo warning about a mysterious vessel steaming toward the Suez Canal. The bulk freighter named Jie Shun was flying Cambodian colors but had sailed from North Korea, the warning said, with a North Korean crew and an unknown cargo shrouded by heavy tarps.

Armed with this tip, customs agents were waiting when the ship entered Egyptian waters. They swarmed the vessel and discovered, concealed under bins of iron ore, a cache of more than 30,000 rocket-propelled grenades. It was, as a United Nations report later concluded, the “largest seizure of ammunition in the history of sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

But who were the rockets for? The Jie Shun’s final secret would take months to resolve and would yield perhaps the biggest surprise of all: The buyers were the Egyptians themselves.

A U.N. investigation uncovered a complex arrangement in which Egyptian business executives ordered millions of dollars worth of North Korean rockets for the country’s military while also taking pains to keep the transaction hidden, according to U.S. officials and Western diplomats familiar with the findings. The incident, many details of which were never publicly revealed, prompted the latest in a series of intense, if private, U.S. complaints over Egyptian efforts to obtain banned military hardware from Pyongyang, the officials said.  [Washington Post]

I recommend reading the whole thing at the link since it is a long, but interesting read about North Korea’s history of selling illicit weapons.

Here is another case of people being caught smuggling gold into South Korea in their underwear:

Two Vietnamese flight attendants working for Asiana Airlines, Korea’s second largest carrier, have been detained after trying to smuggle 19 kilograms of gold into the country, the Korea Customs Service (KCS) said Thursday.

According to the KCS Incheon office, the attendants were concealing 1-kilogram-gold bars ― 10 on one and nine on the other ― in their underwear when they arrived at Incheon International Airport on June 5 from Vietnam.

The KCS said this was not their first smuggling attempt, saying it has confirmed that the two succeeded in smuggling 13 kilograms of gold into Korea on three occasions in April.

They will face charges of attempting to smuggle 32 kilograms of gold, worth about 1.5 billion won ($1.33 million), into the country.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I wonder if the flight attendants were dressed like this?

https://www.rokdrop.net/2017/05/over-2000-kilograms-of-gold-caught-hidden-in-the-private-parts-of-51-koreans/

Here is another example of how North Korea is really a “Soprano State” and why every country should be hesitant to have a DPRK embassy in their country:

Bangladesh authorities have seized a luxury Rolls-Royce Ghost car illegally brought into the country for a former North Korean diplomat expelled for smuggling.

Customs intelligence chief Moinul Khan said Han Son Ik intended to bring in the car without paying duty due to his diplomatic status and sell it on to a local buyer. Officials said the luxury car would have been liable for import duties of more than 800 percent had it been brought in legally.

Han was first secretary of the North Korean embassy in Dhaka until he was expelled in August after being accused of smuggling more than a million cigarettes as well as electronics worth half a million dollars.

“We had intelligence that Han made a deal with a local buyer to bring the person a Rolls-Royce with Han’s diplomatic immunity, therefore he attempted to evade customs tax,” Khan told AFP. “Han has been marked as a frequent offender.” AFP was unable to contact the North Korean embassy for comment.

In March 2015 a North Korean diplomat was forced to apologise after he was caught at Dhaka airport trying to smuggle nearly 27 kilograms (60 pounds) of gold worth $1.7 million into the country. A North Korean restaurant in Dhaka was shut down the same year after officials found it was selling wine and drugs such as Viagra without permission.  [The Indian Express]

One Free Korea makes a great recommendation in this Tweet:

We should print pictures of this diplomat's Rolls-Royce on leaflets & shower N. Korea with them. https://t.co/1BjrM4EC1R via @IndianExpress

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) January 10, 2017

In-depth @csmonitor piece on how 2013 #ChongChonGang bust helped UN, US etc unveil #NKorea's shell ops more widely: https://t.co/3QE2ezmZv9

— Aidan Foster-Carter (@fcaidan) August 29, 2016

A British DJ has been arrested for drug smuggling in Korea:

A Grammy-nominated British DJ was arrested in Korea for alleged drug smuggling, police said Thursday.

Video footage shows him at a customs checkpoint at Incheon International Airport with a 1.5-liter bottle filled with an alleged illegal drug, they said.

Sources said he was Mark Lewis. Lewis, 52, was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2005 in the category of Best Electronic/Dance Album for “I Found U” that he produced.

Sources said Lewis allegedly smuggled 3.78 liters of gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), also known as the date rape drug, into Korea four times from January to June. The value is estimated at 370 million won ($340,000) and the quantity enough to dose 1,000 people. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

This drug bust sure isn’t going to help the already poor image that many South Koreans hold of North Korean defectors living in South Korea.  Of interest is that apparently much of the meth was used by other North Korean defectors which is an indication of the large drug problem in North Korea that has been reported on before.  Just think after unification South Korea will have to deal with an entire country that could be hooked on drugs:

A group of more than 20 North Korean defectors and ethnic Korean-Chinese people have been indicted here on charges of smuggling methamphetamine believed to be produced in the North into South Korea for sale or personal consumption, South Korean prosecutors said on Sunday, noting they have found circumstantial evidence of North Korean residents’ involvement in the crime.

 

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said it has indicted a total of 23 suspects, including North Korean defectors living here and ethnic Koreans in China, with or without detention for smuggling the illegal drug into South Korea and seized about 810.7 grams of meth, or 27,000 doses. Meth, which can trigger side effects such as paranoia, hallucinations, delirium and delusions, is banned in South Korea.

 

All told, 16 North Korean defectors were referred to trial.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link.

First of all why is a North Korean agent allowed in the US in the first place?  Secondly this just shows how complicit the Chinese government is in allowing these front companies to exist that give the Kim regime the capability to smuggle in not only military equipment, but luxury goods as well:

A man from North Korea accused of trying to buy military grade night vision goggles from a Utah-based undercover agent and illegally export them to China has pleaded guilty to a federal charge in an agreement with prosecutors.

Kim Song-il was arrested in Hawaii after agreeing to pay $22,000 for the equipment and packing it into boxes that he claimed were filled with used toys and towels so he could ship them to his Chinese business, charges state.

Prosecutors say they believe the six pairs of goggles would have gotten to North Korea from there, though defense attorney Scott Williams disputes that allegation.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

Via a reader, this story just makes you wonder who the North Koreans are smuggling gold for or is gold some how being used to get around financial sanctions?  That is the biggest questions that need to be looked at with this story:

Bangladeshi customs officers caught a North Korean diplomat trying to smuggle an estimated $1.4 million worth of gold into the country, a senior official said on Friday.

“We recovered the gold both in the form of bars and ornaments from Son Young Nam, the First Secretary of the North Korean Embassy in Dhaka,” said Moinul Khan, Director General of the Custom Intelligence department, adding the gold weighed about 27 kg (60 pounds) in total.

The diplomat was released after his confessional statement, but Bangladesh is seeking to press charges.

“What he did is beyond diplomatic norms,” Khan told Reuters, adding that a visitor can legally bring up to $1,282 worth of gold into Bangladesh.

Khan said the diplomat had passed through the green channel at Dhaka international airport on a late arriving Singapore Airlines flight from Singapore. Customs officials then asked to scan his hand luggage.

“He told our officials there was nothing to scan,” said Najibur Rahman, chairman of the National Board of Revenue.

“Later we informed our foreign ministry and he was released on Friday under the Vienna Convention,” Najibur told Reuters.

A case has been filed against him with the customs department, Khan said. “We have also initiated the process to file a criminal case against him.”  [Huffington Post]

You can read more at the link.