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Article

19 Jan 2020

Author:
Jacob Fromer , NNK News

North Korea: USA blacklists two companies for allegedly violating global ban on DPRK citizens working overseas

“U.S. blacklists two companies for North Korean overseas labor sanctions breaches”, 14 January 2020

The U.S. Treasury Department has blacklisted two companies — one Chinese, one North Korean — for violating a global ban on DPRK citizens working overseas, the department announced...

According to the statement, the Korea Namgang Trading Corporation, based in Pyongyang, and Beijing Sukbakso, allegedly collaborated to send North Korean workers to Russia, Nigeria, and multiple countries in the Middle East — despite American and United Nations sanctions prohibiting DPRK laborers from earning money abroad.

The Treasury Department had previously designated a company called Namgang Construction in 2016 for sending workers overseas, though it’s unclear if the two entities are linked.

The UN Security Council (UNSC) and U.S. have at various points both accused North Korea’s leadership of taking its citizens’ income earned abroad and funneling at least some of the money into the country’s nuclear weapons program.

The two companies named… were responsible for various logistics related to DPRK laborers’ work overseas, according to the Treasury Department, including visas, lodging, and remittance payments back to North Korea.

Both are now barred from the U.S. financial system, and any person who does business with them could be subject to sanctions as well, the Treasury Department said.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment from NK News…

The U.S. and its European allies have insisted that the sweeping, punishing sanctions currently in place against the DPRK — backed by U.S. law and numerous UNSC resolutions — should not be lifted until the North fully abandons its nuclear weapons program.

Pyongyang disagrees, arguing that it must see a rolling back of what it describes as the U.S. “hostile policy” against it before it can disarm…

According to a company database on NK News‘s sister site NK Pro, Korea Namgang Trading Corporation has appeared at multiple trade fairs in Pyongyang in recent years…