Chinese national in California jailed for exporting weapons to North Korea

A Chinese national in California has been sentenced to eight years in prison for shipping firearms and ammunition to North Korea.

North Korean officials paid Shenghua Wen around $2 million (€1.7 million) to ship two containers of weapons and other items from Long Beach in California to North Korea via Hong Kong in 2023, according to the US Attorney's Office in Los Angeles.

The 42-year-old pleaded guilty in June to one count of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and one count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government, the authorities said. Wen was sentenced on Monday.

Wen arrived in the US from China on a student visa in 2012 and remained in the country illegally after it expired in December 2023, according to the attorney's office.

He told investigators that before he entered the US, he met with North Korean officials at an embassy in China, where they instructed him to procure goods for Pyongyang.

Wen said he believed that the weapons would be used for a surprise attack against South Korea, and also admitted that he had tried to buy uniforms to disguise North Korean soldiers, according to a criminal complaint filed in September.

In 2022, North Korean officials contacted Wen via an online messaging app and instructed him to buy firearms, the attorney's office said.

To carry out his operation, Wen purchased a business in 2023 called Super Armory, a federal firearms licensee, and registered it under his business partner's name in Texas.

He had other people purchase the firearms and then drove them to California, misrepresenting the shipments as a refrigerator and camera parts. Investigators did not say whether Wen had organised any shipments during his first 10 years in the US.

The FBI in September seized 50,000 rounds of ammunition from Wen's home in the Los Angeles suburb of Ontario that had been stored in a van parked in the driveway. They also seized a chemical threat identification device and a transmission detection device that Wen said he planned to send to the North Korean government for military use.

Authorities did not specify in the complaint the types of weapons that were exported.

United Nations resolutions ban North Korea from trading weapons. Washington has also imposed its own sanctions on Pyongyang over its nuclear and ballistic missile activities.

Pyongyang condemns Seoul

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has demonstrated an intent to deploy battlefield nuclear weapons along the North's border with South Korea, a US ally, recently delivering nuclear-capable missile launchers to frontline military units.

Tensions flared again this week between Seoul and Pyongyang as South Korea and the United States began their annual large-scale joint military exercise.

Kim condemned the drills and vowed a rapid expansion of his nuclear forces to counter rivals as he inspected the nation's most advanced warship, state media said on Tuesday.

North Korea has brushed aside calls by South Korea's new liberal President Lee Jae-myung for the two rivals to resume diplomacy, and relations have soured in recent years as Kim accelerated his weapons programme and deepened alignment with Moscow following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Kim Yo-jong, the influential sister of North Korea's leader, on Wednesday once again taunted South Korea's efforts to improve ties and said Pyongyang would never accept Seoul as a diplomatic partner, according to state media.

Kim reportedly told foreign ministry officials that reconciliation with South Korea would never happen, and urged the ministry to pursue "proper countermeasures" against Seoul, which she labelled the "most hostile state" and a "faithful dog" of Washington.

In response to Kim Yo-jong's comments, South Korea's Unification Ministry — which handles inter-Korean affairs — said Lee's government will continue to take "proactive steps for peace" and called for mutual respect between the countries.