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The California resident has sent at least three weapons containers to North Korea, according to the prosecutors.
A Chinese illegally living in the United States pleaded guilty to having exported firearms, ammunition and other military articles to North Korea towards Pyongyang, said the United States justice ministry.
Shenghua Wen, Ontario, California, admitted a conspiracy chief to violate the international emergency economic law – a 1977 law which allows the president to restrict trade with countries for national security reasons – and a head of action as an illegal agent of a foreign government, the Ministry of Justice announced on Monday.
Wen, 42, sent at least three weapons containers to North Korea in 2023, one of whom arrived in Nampo, North Korea, via Hong Kong, according to prosecutors.
To facilitate the program, Wen bought a firearm business in Houston, Texas, and used false documents to hide the content of its shipping containers, according to the prosecutors.
WEN, which was arrested in December, would also have bought around 60,000 rpm of 9 mm ammunition and obtained “sensitive technology”, including a chemical threat identification device, for shipping to North Korea.
Wen would have been responsible for obtaining weapons and sensitive goods by North Korean officials he met at the North Korean Embassy in China before entering a student visa in 2012.
Wen would have been transferred around $ 2 million to carry out the program.
“Wen admitted that in all relevant moments, he knew that it was illegal to send firearms, ammunition and sensitive technologies to North Korea. He also admitted that he had ever had the licenses required to export ammunition, firearms and the above-mentioned devices described to North Korea,” said the American prosecutor’s office for the central district of California press.
“He also admitted to having acted in the direction of representatives of the North Korean government and that he had not given any notification to the United States Attorney General that he was acting in the United States in the direction and control of North Korea, as required by the law.”
During the interrogation by the FBI, Wen said that he thought that the North Korean government wanted arms and ammunition to prepare for an attack on South Korea, according to a criminal complaint filed in September.
Wen is expected to face the court for conviction in August.
He risks a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for violating the international law on economic powers and up to 10 years for having acted as an illegal agent of a foreign government.
