U.N. report: Bank of China told shipper in illegal arms deal to hide N. Korean links
Today, the U.N. Panel of Experts monitoring (non-)compliance with its North Korea sanctions released its latest report, and it’s a doozy. Including exhibits, it’s almost 300 pages long, and the substance should be material for several posts. Our first installment comes from the December 2015 conviction of Chinpo Shipping over the 2013 Cuba arms shipment. Remember last July, when I asked, “What about the Bank of China?” Well, we have our answer, and from the look of it, the Bank of China had better lawyer up:
190. In a rare proliferation financing prosecution, the Singapore District Court charged Chinpo Shipping Company (Private) and its Director, Tan Cheng Hoe, with providing financial services or transferring financial assets or resources to OMM (see paras. 137-141). On 14 December 2015, the Court found that Mr. Tan had transferred $72,016.76 to a foreign shipping agent for the shipment aboard the Chong Chon Gang in July 2013 (intercepted by Panama).
191. The judge, Jasvender Kaur, stated that Chinpo “had conducted no due diligence whatsoever” before transferring the funds on 8 July 2013. She found that Chinpo had applied for 605 outward remittances totalling $40 million between 2009 and 2013 on behalf of nationals of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The accused described himself as a “payment agent” for OMM.
192. Court documents provide ample evidence of both the implementation and the evasion of targeted financial measures. The documents indicate that, although Chinpo at one time indicated vessel names in its outgoing remittance forms, it ceased that practice in the second half of 2010. According to Mr. Tan’s statement, “more questions were asked by the bank in the United States when the vessel name was included, and some processing banks will reject the transaction after asking for more information”. He then stated that the Singapore branch of Bank of China, from which Chinpo had undertaken the transaction of $72,016.76, “had advised [Chinpo] to leave out the vessel name in transactions, that bank was aware that the remittances were being conducted on the behest of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea entities”.95 Apparently, as a result of that advice, Mr. Tan began to remove vessel names from the payment details. Chinpo similarly advised entities of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on multiple occasions not to include such names in inward remittances, further assisting sanctions evasion. An employee stated that she had been instructed to include that reminder in outgoing e-mails. Another employee elaborated that that instruction had been included “partly because Chinpo wanted to get the money and the funds would be blocked by the US if the US knew that the transfers were made in relation to a Democratic People’s Republic of Korea vessel”.96 The Panel notes that such information-stripping is consistent with the evasion practices used by other OMM entities and individuals.
Got that? The Bank of China, in violation of Executive Order 13551, deliberately advised a customer to strip data out of series of transactions with a North Korean puppet, who was doing an illegal arms deal through the U.S. financial system. Whether the BoC knew the ultimate purpose of the transactions is no defense. Its legal obligations were to perform due diligence and know its customers, especially when that customer was linked to North Korea.
Stripping the North Korean affiliations out of a wire transfer gives this story the whiff of straight-up money laundering, not unlike the conduct that cost Barclays Bank a $2.5M hit for moving $3.3M for Zimbabwe, or caused Credit Agricole to eat a $300M fine for violating Sudan, Cuba, and Iran sanctions. Et cetera, et cetera.
Historically, $40 million hasn’t been a trivial amount of money to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, especially when the data-stripping is willful. It is, to use the technical legal term, a “B.F.D.” This may be the point when we figure out whether the Obama Administration is finally serious about enforcing the law against North Korea or not.
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Update: Yup, called it:
In the Bank of China’s case, Beijing’s diplomats have privately raised concerns about the panel’s decision to name the Chinese bank. They have argued that the only evidence comes from a Singaporean court and that the experts should have relied more on the word of Chinese authorities. [Foreign Policy, Colum Lynch]
Read the whole thing.