Whom North Korea has sold 30 thousand units of illegal weapons?

Whom North Korea has sold 30 thousand units of illegal weapons?

In August of last year from Washington to Cairo sent a secret message that the mysterious ship is sailing towards the Suez canal. Cargo ship Jie shun swam out of the DPRK with North Korean crew on Board and an unknown cargo under the tarp. Customs service of Egypt at the request of US checked out what is on the ship, and found under the drawers with iron ore more than 30 thousand anti-tank grenade launchers.

The United Nations called the smuggling «the largest cargo of ammunition, which were seized during the sanctions against the Democratic people’s Republic». The weapon found was a copy of North Korean missiles, known as PG-7, which is a modification of the anti-tank grenade launcher, first developed in the 1960-ies. But this was not the most amazing fact. The UN investigation, which lasted several months, revealed that buyers of the weapons themselves became the Egyptians.

Egyptian businessmen built elaborate scheme: they have invested millions of dollars in the purchase of North Korean missiles to the state of the army, and made every effort to conceal the transaction. According to US officials, this incident was another case of a series of preceding, when Egypt was trying to obtain military technology from Pyongyang illegally.

The statement of the Embassy of Egypt in Washington talked about «transparency» of Egypt and cooperation with U.S. officials in the detection and destruction of smuggling: «Egypt will continue to implement all the resolutions of the UN security Council and will always comply with these resolutions, as they limit military procurement in North Korea».

As reported by the anonymous officials, only during the summer of 2017 , the administration of the tramp froze or delayed about $ 300 million, aimed at military aid to Egypt.

In The Washington Post said that this episode illustrates one of the key issues facing world leaders seeking to change North Korea’s behavior through economic pressure. Even when the United States and its allies strengthen sanctions, Kim Jong-UN has continued quietly to profit from the sale of cheap weapons. To the DPRK have included such countries as Iran, Burma, Cuba, Syria, and Eritrea, according to analysts, at least two terrorist groups, as well as key U.S. allies such as Egypt.

Whom North Korea has sold 30 thousand units of illegal weapons?Military ground troops in Iraq with RPG-7, wikimedia.org

Some customers have old ties with Pyongyang, while others seek to exploit a unique market niche created by North Korea: sort of a global eBay for the old and refurbished weapons during the cold war, often at prices much lower than in the existing market.

By the way, North Korea is very creative in the smuggling, for example, a country may use a «false flag» and cleverly to mask the illegal shipment of other goods (sugar, iron ore). In this case, the ship Jie shun was registered in Cambodia and sailed under the flag of this country.

«Automatic identification system ship was disabled for most of the flight, the report said the UN — with the exception of busy shipping lanes, where such behaviour could be noted and assessed as a threat to security.»

Source