Jasvender Kaur News

Chinpo Shipping Company was fined a total of $180,000 on Friday (Jan 29) for transferring funds that could reasonably have been used to contribute to North Korea's nuclear programme and for running a remittance business without a valid licence. The company paid a Panamanian shipping agent $72,000 (£50,000) for the passage of North Korean ship the Chong Chon Gang through the Panama Canal. The arms shipment was hidden under more than 10,000 tonnes of sugar. The Chong Chon Gang was stopped while navigating the Panama Canal, by officials who suspected it was being used to smuggle drugs. "The haul, hidden under heaps of sugar and discovered by Panamanian authorities…

Singapore-based Chinpo Shipping Company (Private) Ltd was fined S$180,000 ($125,698) on Friday for facilitating a shipment of arms to North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions. The Singapore District Court had found Chinpo guilty in December of transferring financial assets or resources that could have been used to contribute to North Korea's nuclear and missile weapon programmes. It also found Chinpo guilty of carrying out a remittance business without a license between 2009 and 2013. Chinpo Shipping was named in a March 2014 U.N. report as helping to arrange the shipment of Cuban fighter jets and missile parts bound for North Korea, when they were seized in Panama in 2013. It was the largest amount of arms and related materiel interdicted to or from North Korea since the U.N.