It has been reported today that the UK has provided the UN Committee responsible for oversight of the UN’s sanctions against North Korea with a dossier of evidence said to establish breaches of those sanctions by Russian shipping.
The Committee has the power to designate vessels which it finds were complicit in breaching the existing sanctions.
A Spanish national, Alejandro Cao de Benos, has been arrested on an US arrest warrant on suspicion of breaching sanctions against North Korea.
It is alleged that he was providing cryptocurrency advice to North Korea to assist with circumventing US sanctions.
It was reported today that the Dutch port authorities in Rotterdam have seized 90,000 bottles of vodka allegedly destined for North Korea. The vessel was first to sail to China.
Such an export would be a breach of the EU’s sanctions against North Korea. The Dutch authorities have not commented on the source of the intelligence used to identify the alleged destination of the goods.
It has been reported today that the United Nations Panel of Experts on its North Korean sanctions is investigating possible sanctions breaches by the German company Müller + Partner GmbH.
The allegations relate to the shipment of luxury goods to North Korea and involve transshipment through Singapore.
The Latvian Finance and Capital Markets Commission has today announced a fine of €1.3 million against Norvik Banka and of €1.56 million against Rietumu Banka in relation to transactions related to circumvention of North Korean sanctions between 2013 and 2014 and 2009 and 2015 respectively.
Both banks have cooperated with the FCMC and have undertaken as part of administrative agreements to improve their internal compliance functions.
On June 27, 2017, the Latvian Financial and Capital Market Commission entered into administrative agreements with three different Latvian Banks for failings related to breaches of North Korean sanctions. Each of the banks cooperated with the investigations.
JSC Baltikums Bank and JSC PrivatBank were each fined €35,575 for “weaknesses in customer due diligence and transaction monitoring that led to the situation that bank had been used to circumvent international sanctions requirements imposed against North Korea”.
JSC Reģionālā investiciju Banka, was fined €570,364, for the same failings, but also for “failure to ensure effective functioning of internal control system”. To remedy this, the bank was undertaken to invest €2.8 million on “the improvement of its internal control system in 2017/2018”.
In addition official warnings were issued to those at the bank responsible for AML and CTF controls. The bank also undertook to “assess its AML/CTF internal control system and take the necessary measures to improve its functioning and effectiveness in line with the action plan, to perform external testing on the categorization of customer base and IT solutions, as well as assess the risks associated with cross-border enforcement of sanctions”.
