Most 61-year-olds spend their time gardening, watching TV, and tsk-ing at youths.
One 61-year-old man in Singapore, however, must have found those activities dull, as he chose to do illegal deals with North Korea instead.
Buckle up, dear readers: this is a wild story.
A S’porean is Now Wanted by the FBI for Illegal Deals With North Korea
That’s right, a Singaporean is now wanted by the FBI after he allegedly engaged in illegal business deals with North Korea and laundered money.
The man, Kwek Kee Seng, works as a director of a shipping agency in Singapore.
The 61-year-old is accused of directing petroleum oil shipments worth more than US$1.5 million (S$2 million) to North Korea.
Kwek was involved in the scheme from February 2018 to March last year.
In July 2019, Kwek allegedly bought the M/T Courageous in July 2019 for about US$580,000 (S$770,000), a 2,700-ton oil tanker built in 1987.
Between August and December 2019, the tanker allegedly turned off its Automatic Identification System (AIS), which means it couldn’t be tracked or located.
In September that year, Kwek allegedly bought more than 2.8 million kg of oil and later transferred it from Courageous to a North Korean vessel in the Korea Bay.
He may have turned off the vessel’s AIS, but satellite images showed Courageous tethered to the North Korean vessel on 25 September 2019. Another image showed the ship at the North Korean port of Nampo on 4 November 2019.
Then, in March last year, Courageous was seized in Cambodia.
A search of the ship allegedly showed it had falsely identified itself as another ship called the Sea Cheetah.
A federal arrest warrant was then issued for Kwek by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Other Companies Implicated
Three other companies were also implicated in the crime, namely Swansea Port Services in Singapore, Courage Maritime SA in Panama, and New Eastern Shipping in China.
Swansea Port Services, for instance, reportedly issued a cargo clearance permit for the illegal transaction between the two countries.
The money involved in the scheme was allegedly moved through various accounts at US financial institutions in the hope it would go unnoticed.
Kwek also tried to hide his identity by using a series of shell companies.
Case Being Handled By Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) said Kwek has been charged with conspiring the violate US and United Nations sanctions and to commit money laundering.
His case is now being handled by the Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit of the US Attorney’s Office.
The 61-year-old is now a fugitive on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s radar, and it has issued a wanted notice for him.
As for why this is such a big deal, it’s because the sanctions which Kwek flouted were placed on North Korea to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.
Consequently, he is now wanted for conspiracy relating to the enabling of North Korea’s nuclear proliferation programmes.
If convicted, Kwek could be jailed for up to 20 years for each charge.
He is still at large at the moment. The US will be working with its foreign partners to locate him.
Feature Image: ebedev / Shutterstock.com
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