First trial of North Koreans delivered to the US… “Supplying luxury goods to North Korea, laundering 1.6 billion money”

Moon Cheol-myeong, 55, who was delivered to the United States after being arrested in Malaysia for violating sanctions against North Korea, appeared in a federal court in Washington, DC on the 22nd (local time), the Associated Press reported. Moon is the first North Korean citizen to be tried in a US court.

The Ministry of Justice said in a press release that “After nearly two years of legal proceedings, Moon Chul-myung, a citizen of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), was repatriated to the United States. This is the first case in which a North Korean citizen was surrendered to the United States as a criminal.”

Moon is accused of bringing luxury goods into North Korea, which is subject to sanctions against North Korea, and setting up a ghost company for money laundering.

“According to the indictment, Mr. Moon is accused of laundering money to evade anti-proliferation sanctions imposed on North Korea by the United States and the United Nations,” said John Demus, Assistant Secretary for National Security at the Ministry of Justice. “We prevent sanctions avoidance and threaten security. “We will continue to apply the law broadly to protect Americans from the disease.”

According to the indictment and court documents released that day, Moon accessed the U.S. financial system between April 2013 and November 2018 with his accomplices and made transactions worth over 1.5 million dollars (about 1.6 billion won) in total, tricking the bank and stealing funds. It violated US and UN sanctions by laundering.

Moon is also accused of being involved in supplying luxury goods from Singapore to North Korea that the UN has banned from being brought into North Korea. The US Department of Justice believes that Mr. Moon is linked to the North Korean intelligence agency, the Reconnaissance Office, which is subject to sanctions by the United States and the United Nations. The Reconnaissance General Bureau is an agency dedicated to foreign operations in North Korea.

The U.S. Department of Justice said in an indictment that Moon and others used a bank account registered under a fake name with a ghost company to hide their relationship with North Korea and deceive the US bank by concealing the fact of intentionally sending money to a North Korean institution.

Moon was arrested and detained in Malaysia on May 14 after being prosecuted in a federal court in Washington, DC on May 2, 2019, the Ministry of Justice said. The repatriation took place when a Malaysian court approved Moon’s surrender.

Moon asked the Malaysian court to dismiss the surrender of recruits, saying that if he was repatriated to the United States, he would not be able to get a fair trial, the Associated Press said.

On the 19th, North Korea warned that it would pay a price to the United States after declaring a break with Malaysia for the repatriation of Mr. Moon. The North Koreans referred to Mr. Moon as “our innocent citizen,” and claimed that the Malaysian authorities had committed the crime of surrendering him to the United States by selling him as a criminal.

The U.S. Department of Justice said that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. military Indo-Pacific Command were also mobilized for the arrest of Moon. “The biggest challenge for the FBI with regard to counterintelligence is to put a defendant abroad, especially like North Korea, to trial,” said FBI counterintelligence director Alan Kohler. “Thanks to cooperation with foreign agencies, we will bring Mr. Moon to the United States and punish him according to the law. “I am proud to be able to do it.”

When asked about the impact of Moon’s trial on US-North Korea relations at a regular briefing today, Jelina Porter, deputy spokesman for the US State Department, said, “I reiterate that the US continues to focus on the denuclearization of North Korea.”

Washington = Correspondent Park Hyun-young [email protected]