Chinese imprisoned in the United States for sending weapons to North Korea

A Chinese national was sentenced to eight years in prison for smuggling firearms and other military articles in North Korea, the United States justice ministry said.

Shenghua Wen, 42, received approximately $ 2 million (1.5 million pounds sterling) from North Korean officials to ship California items, according to a press release from the agency on Monday.

An Ontario resident, California, Wen has been detained since December 2024. He pleaded guilty in June to conspire to violate the international law on economic powers and be an illegal agent of a foreign government.

The case of Wen highlights the different ways of which North Korea bypassing international sanctions on its arms trade.

Describing WEN as an “illegal foreigner”, the Ministry of Justice said it entered the United States on a student visa in 2012 and stayed in the country after the expiration of its visa in December 2013.

“Before entering the United States, Wen met officials from the government of North Korea in a North Korean embassy in China,” said the agency. “These government representatives ordered WEN to get goods on behalf of North Korea.”

According to the Ministry of Justice, two North Korean officials arrived via an online messaging platform in 2022 and told him to bring firearms and other goods from the United States to North Korea, according to the Ministry of Justice.

In 2023, he sent at least three containers of firearms from Port de Long Beach to China, their final destination being North Korea. He filed false information on export on the content of the container.

Such a container, which he had reported as a refrigerator, arrived in Hong Kong in January 2024 before being sent to Nampo, North Korea.

He also bought a firearm business in Houston with money from a North Korean contact and led Texas weapons to California, where they were organized to be shipped.

Last September, Wen bought around 60,000 rpm of 9 mm ammunition with plans to ship them to North Korea.

The American authorities also said that Wen had obtained a “sensitive technology” which he had wanted to send to North Korea, as a device for identifying chemical threats and a large laptop receptor.

“Wen admitted to his advocacy agreement that, at all relevant times, he knew that it was illegal to send firearms, ammunition and technologies sensitive to North Korea,” said the Ministry of Justice.

Under sanctions by the United Nations Security Council, North Korea is forbidden to exchange arms and military equipment. The United States has also imposed its own sanctions on North Korea on its activities of nuclear and ballistic missiles.

But North Korea has developed ways to get around the sanctions.

In 2015, the Black put on black list in the United States a navigation firm based in Singapore for having allegedly supported the expeditions of illicit weapons to North Korea. In 2016, the Egyptian authorities intercepted a North Korean ship containing more than 30,000 grenades for Egypt.

And in 2023, British American tobacco had to pay more than $ 600 million (445 million pounds sterling) for having sold cigarettes to North Korea in violation of sanctions.