Friday, 30 July 2021, US government seized an oil tanker which is used for making illegal deliveries to North Korea. As officials confirmed, this oil tanker belongs Singapore.
According to Justice Department statement, this ship has name M/T Courageous, which iscurrently in Cambodia. M/T Courageous has 2,734 tons capacity, was purchased by Singaporean national Kwek Kee Seng, who remains large.
A New York federal judge issued a judgement of forfeiture authorizing the US to take ownership of the ship M/T Courageous .
Statement said, “Kwek and his co-conspirators engaged in an extensive scheme to evade… US and UN sanctions by using vessels under their control to covertly transport fuel to North Korea”.
The justice department has accused Singapore national Kwek Kee Seng for trying to hide the scheme by using shell companies, lying to international shipping authorities and illegally avoid detection of Courageous.
As detail report shows, the ship name Courageous was illegally stop transmitting its location information to satellite. Satellite images indicate, during that time, the ship was engaged in ship-to-ship transfers of near about $1.5 million worth oil. It was managed to ship this amount of oil to North Korean ships.
Authorities of Cambodia seized the tanker in March 2020 on a U.S. warrant and have held the Courageous there from March 2020.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York filed a civil forfeiture action against the tanker on April 23.
Washington and Pyongyang relations are not good, since foreign minister of North Korea in June ruling out any talks with US, said such talks would “get us nowhere”.
Mayur is a part time journalist with about 2 years experience. While working in the field of healthcare, Mayur found a passion for finding engaging stories. As a contributor to White Pine Tribune, Mayur mostly covers International Politics and Life Sciences Related Stories
