Chinese company charged with evading N Korean sanctions

A China-based trading company and four of its top employees have been charged with conspiring to evade US economic sanctions and for allegedly supporting North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, the Justice Department said today.
A criminal complaint signed by US Magistrate Judge Joseph in New Jersey charged Ma Xiaohong (Ma) and her company - Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development Co Ltd (DHID) - and three of its top executives with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and to defraud the US; violating IEEPA; and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments.
Simultaneously, the US Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also imposed sanctions on the company and two of the three executives for their ties to the government of North Korea's weapons of mass destruction proliferation efforts.

In addition, the department filed a civil forfeiture action for all funds contained in 25 Chinese bank accounts that allegedly belong to DHID and its front companies.
The department has also requested that the federal court in the District of New Jersey issue a restraining order for all of the funds named in the civil forfeiture action, based upon the allegation that the funds represent property involved in money laundering, which makes them forfeitable to the US.
"The charges and forfeiture action announced today allege that defendants in China established and used shell companies around the world,surreptitiously moved money through the United States and violated the sanctions imposed on North Korea in response to, among other things, its nuclear weapons program," said Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell.