US Prosecutors are Seeking to Seize Money from Chinese Companies Doing Business with North Korea

North Korea is getting money and the parts to build their nuclear weapons and missiles from somewhere.  Going after the Kim regime’s money network and part suppliers is something that the US can unilaterally do, but has not aggressively pursued because many of the front companies assisting the Kim regime are based in China.  It appears the Trump administration has now lost patience with the Chinese government and may start aggressively targeting these Chinese companies and the banks assisting them:

U.S. authorities have tried to seize millions of dollars associated with several companies that deal with North Korea, including the country’s military, from eight large international banks, according to court filings made public on Thursday.

The effort was revealed two days after North Korea tested a long-range missile capable of reaching Alaska, ratcheting up tensions with the United States and adding to worries about North Korea leader Kim Jong Un’s nuclear weapons plans.

Thursday’s filings show that Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the federal court in Washington, D.C. on May 22 granted U.S. prosecutors’ applications for “damming” seizure warrants against Bank of America Corp, Bank of New York Mellon Corp, Citigroup Inc, Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Standard Chartered Plc and Wells Fargo & Co.

Prosecutors believe the banks have processed more than $700 million of “prohibited” transactions on behalf of entities tied to North Korea since 2009, including the period after Donald Trump was elected U.S. president, the filings show.

Some of the transactions were processed for Dandong Zhicheng Metallic Material Co and four affiliated “front” companies that prosecutors said tried to evade sanctions through transactions that would benefit North Korean entities, “including the North Korea military and North Korea weapons programs,” according to the filings.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link, but for the Kim regime $700 million is a lot of money.  Long time ROK Heads may remember how much the Kim regime got worked up when $25 million was seized from the Macau Bank, Banco Delta Asia.  This seizure caused the Kim regime to actually come to the bargaining table and make some major concessions to get their money back.