Report: Firms and ships under investigation in link to illegal North Korean trade

SEOUL, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- The United Nations and U.S. authorities have been investigating companies and vessels, involved in illegal North Korean trades, Wall Street Journal reported.

Citing U.N. and U.S. officials, the report said that some 40 ships and 130 companies have been under probe with their involvement in illicit North Korean trade activities, conducted in disguise using various tactics to avoid tracking.

Some of the vessels have made 200 alleged illegal shipments of petroleum products and coal. The report said that such illegal trades help the regime stay afloat and maintain its gasoline prices stable despite tightening sanctions.

The U.N. and U.S. have imposed sanctions against North Korea that ban trades with North Korea for designated items, including petroleum products and coal, after a series of nuclear weapons and missile tests.

The report revealed a variety of tactics the vessels use to disclose a ship's location and avoid monitoring by officials. Vessels often turn off their ship tracking system or transfer shipments of fuel to other ships in the middle of an ocean.

A ship under a China-based company named Chang An Shipping & Technology Ltd., which had been delivering North Korean coal to overseas, operated under flags of four different countries, including Tanzania.

Another vessel Hua Fu was caught delivering North Korean coal exports to Vietnam after faking its departure location and transferring shipments in the midocean. It was blacklisted by the U.N. this year.

The U.S. Department of Justice has accused a Singaporean firm and two Chinese companies of laundering money for North Korea and helping its petroleum and coal trades. It filed a complaint to a U.S. federal court to forfeit more than $3 million from the companies, the Department of Justice said in a press release on Tuesday.

The U.S. government accused them of laundering U.S. dollars on behalf of sanctioned North Korean banks. The money was used to buy goods for the North Korean regime and to illicitly access the U.S. financial market.