The Department of Justice is accusing a Singaporean trader of helping North Korea circumvent sanctions, saying Tan Wee Beng laundered millions of dollars through the…
The Department of Justice is accusing a Singaporean trader of helping North Korea circumvent sanctions, saying Tan Wee Beng laundered millions of dollars through the U. S. and Singapore.
“Tan Wee Beng and his co-conspirators made deliberate efforts to launder money through the U. S. financial system on behalf of North Korea,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement on Thursday from the agency announcing the DOJ’s charges.
The Treasury Department also announced “North Korea-related designations” on two of Tan Wee Beng’s associated businesses, Wee Tiong (S) Pte Ltd and WT Marine Pte Ltd.
A representative at Wee Tiong (S) Pte Ltd, where Tan is director and a major shareholder, told NPR Tan was not available to comment on the charges.
However, in comments to the BBC, the 41-year-old Tan denied the charges, telling the network, “Nobody has contacted me. The FBI has not called me, the Singapore police have not called me.”
“We are an international trading company, and not a front [for laundering],” he reportedly said, saying he found out about the charges through news reports.
The Treasury Department alleged that since at least 2011, Tan and at least one other person at the company completed contracts for commodities worth millions of dollars for North Korea.
“To do so, Tan Wee Beng made a concerted effort to obfuscate payment origins and structure transactions to avoid regulatory scrutiny,” the agency said — adding that in one instance, Tan and the company “orchestrated payment in bulk cash, hand-delivered to a North Korean.
