The secretary of a Singapore-based firm, Lam Hon Lan, 40, pleaded guilty to three charges of breaching a United Nations Act that prohibits any Singaporeans in or outside of the country from selling or supplying luxury items to North Korea.
The Singaporean allegedly helped her boss and others to supply close to S$500,000 worth of luxury items to North Korea.
In accordance to the United Nations Act, any persons with information about such transactions must alert the authorities.
Lam was fined a total of $6,000 for the three charges.
Deputy Public Prosecutors Thiam Jia Min and Grace Lim said that Lam was working as a secretary for SCN Singapore, a commodities wholesale trader, between 2010 and 2016.
The Director of SCN Singapore, Chong Hock Yen, 59, was the sole decision maker of the three companies that he had stakes and interests in, including Sindok Trading and Laurich International.
Chong was the sole decision maker of the three companies whose main business was supplying goods to North Korea.
As the secretary, Lam followed Chong’s instructions and finessed the administrative details for the supply of the goods to North Korea.
Her job scope included sourcing the luxury items, issuing export documents and arrange shipments.
The goods were shipped in 43 batches over a period of 6 years on the instructions of Chong, who knew wholly that he was in violation of the law.
The DPPs added that Lam knew that what her company was doing was illegal, but she was afraid of losing her job so she didn’t report the matter to the police.
The cat finally escaped from the bag when Singapore’s Commercial Affairs Department received information that SCN Singapore had “significant sales” to more than one entity in North Korea on September 25, 2017.
At the time of writing, the cases involving SCN Singapore, Sindok Trading and Gunnar Singapore are currently still ongoing and pending.
The penalty for breaching the Act before March 10, 2014, was a fine of up to S$100,000 and a jail term of up to five years.
Offences committed after March 10, 2014 can result in jail terms of up to 10 years or a fine, or both.