UN accuses North Korea of using embassies, front companies to circumvent its sanctions
United Nations accuses Pyongyang of using sophisticated techniques to circumvent curbs, including deals with Hong Kong companies
North Korea has developed sophisticated techniques to circumvent sanctions, including the suspected use of its embassies in Singapore and Cuba to facilitate an illegal trade in weapons, a UN report said.
The United Nations said North Korea was also making use of more complicated financial countermeasures via companies in Hong Kong that made its purchase of prohibited goods more difficult to track.
[North Korea] makes increasing use of circumvention techniques
The report, compiled by a panel of eight UN experts, is part of an annual accounting of North Korea's compliance with layers of UN sanctions imposed in response to its banned nuclear and missile programmes.
The panel reports to the UN Security Council.
"From the incidents analysed in the period under review, the panel has found that [North Korea] makes increasing use of multiple and tiered circumvention techniques," a summary of the 127-page report said.
It said North Korean embassies in Cuba and Singapore were suspected of organising an illegal shipment of fighter jets and missile parts that were seized on a North Korean container ship in Panama last July.
