S’pore firm guilty of facilitating arms shipment to North Korea

SINGAPORE – A Singapore-registered shipping firm, Chinpo Shipping Company, was today (Dec 14) found guilty of transferring money that could have contributed to North Korea’s nuclear-related programmes or activities.

The firm was also convicted of running a remittance business between April 2, 2009 and July 3, 2013 without a valid remittance licence.

The court heard that the company began doing so when its shipping businesses started to dry up.

Chinpo had transferred US$72,017 (about S$102,000) from its Bank of China account to CB Fenton and Co, a Panama shipping agent, on July 8 last year, knowing that the money could be used to contribute to the “nuclear-related programmes or activities” of North Korea.

This was in breach of United Nations (UN) sanctions restricting arms trading with North Korea because of its nuclear-weapons programme.

The money transfer was for a North Korean container ship, Chong Chon Gang, to pass through the Panama Canal from Cuba.

A shipment of weapons, hidden under a cargo of sugar, was later seized from the ship, including two Cuban fighter-jets in perfect condition, missiles and live munitions.

In March this year, the UN Security Council’s sanctions committee named Chinpo as one of two firms trying to smuggle arms to North Korea — the other was Pyongyang-based Ocean Maritime Management.

District Judge Jasvender Kaur said today that the prosecution does not have the legal burden of proving that Chinpo knowingly transferred the amount.

She added that there is a general presumption of law where intent has to be proven, but this is displaced “when the court is driven to infer that Parliament intended to place an obligation to encourage greater vigilance and due diligence to prevent the prohibited act”.

On the issue of whether the seized arms and contents found on board the ship were related to North Korea’s nuclear-related programmes or activities, the district judge said the UN regulation “did not require the items to be nuclear-related components in themselves”.

It was also not disputed that on July 8, 2013, Chinpo transferred the money for the ship’s return passage through the Panama Canal, where it was a “necessary payment” for the transport of the arms and related material from Cuba to North Korea, she said.

The firm was found to have stopped indicating the vessels’ names in outgoing remittance forms since the second half of 2010.

Between April 2009 and July 2013, Chinpo applied to its bank for 605 outward remittances, totalling about US$40 million, on behalf of the North Korean entities.

It held large sums of monies for them and Ocean Maritime Management in its account, and its director, Tan Cheng Hoe, 82, was questioned on these transactions.

The case was adjourned to Jan 29 for the prosecution’s submission on sentencing. The maximum fine is S$100,000 or jail of up to five years, or both, for the offence under Regulation 12(b) of the United Nations (Sanctions — Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) Regulations 2010.