Singapore charges company over NKorea weapons role

Singapore charges company over NKorea weapons role
BY SATISH CHENEY
ASSOCIATED PRESS

SINGAPORE -- Singapore filed criminal charges Tuesday against a shipping
company implicated in a shipment of weapons to North Korea that was
seized by Panamanian authorities last year.

Locally registered Chinpo Shipping Company Ltd. was charged with
transferring $72,000 to a Panama shipping agent knowing that the funds
could be used to contribute to the "nuclear-related, ballistic
missile-related, or other weapons of mass destruction-related programs
or activities" of North Korea.

A Chinpo executive, 50-year-old Singapore citizen Tan Hui Tin, who is
the daughter of Chinpo's chairman, was charged for withholding potential
electronic evidence.

The charges follow Panama's seizure in June last year of a North Korean
ship headed from Cuba to North Korea. Panamanian authorities suspected
it was transporting drugs but found two Cuban fighter jets in perfect
condition, missiles and live munitions beneath the Chong Chon Gang's
cargo of sugar.

Panama says the weapons violated U.N. sanctions that restrict arms
trading with North Korea because of its nuclear weapons program.

In March, the United Nations Security Council's sanctions committee
named Chinpo as one of two companies involved in trying to ship arms to
North Korea. The other was Ocean Maritime Management, a Pyongyang-based
company.

Singapore's foreign ministry said authorities received information about
Chinpo in January this year.

A panel of experts advising the Security Council said in its annual
report on North Korea that the country's embassies, including in
Singapore and Cuba, were suspected of helping to organize arms shipments
to Pyongyang via complex financial methods that were "pioneered by
drug-trafficking organizations."

The report said Chinpo Shipping Company was "co-located" with the North
Korean Embassy in Singapore and that the shipping firm acted as the
agent for Ocean Maritime Management, which operated the Chong Chon Gang.

A woman who answered the phone at Chinpo declined to comment.

Source: SINGAPORE: Singapore charges company over NKorea weapons role -
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http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/06/10/4168843/singapore-charges-citizen-over.html