Within the draft of its new report, the U.N. panel lists the car identification numbers of the 2 armored Mercedes sedans shipped to North Korea in
Within the draft of its new report, the U.N. panel lists the car identification numbers of the 2 armored Mercedes sedans shipped to North Korea in the summer of 2018. The numbers allowed investigators to ferret out extra particulars on the cargo and the businesses concerned.
The report names two Italian corporations as procurers, however didn’t accuse them of criminality.
Mr. Cianci, a gross sales supervisor for European Automobiles and Extra SRL, the Italian firm that purchased the automobiles from Mercedes-Benz in early 2018, mentioned in prolonged interviews that he had not violated any export rules and expressed frustration that Mercedes-Benz had reduce enterprise ties with him in December 2019.
He didn’t present the identify of the shopper for whom he purchased the automobiles. “My shopper is Italian. He has an import-export enterprise in Rome,” Mr. Cianci mentioned. “The shopper is somebody with not solely diplomatic connections to China, but additionally different international locations.”
The second Italian firm named within the report is LS Logistica e Spedizioni SRL, based mostly in Rome. It was chargeable for delivery the automobiles to Dalian, China, after which onward to Japan. The corporate didn’t reply to an emailed request for remark.
Daimler, the guardian firm of Mercedes-Benz, was not capable of present extra particulars on the precise automobiles, however launched a press release that mentioned the “gross sales of automobiles by third events, particularly of used automobiles, are past our management and duty.”
“For a few years, we’ve solely obtained photographs of automobiles, which gave us no risk to establish any of the automobiles. Solely in 2019, we obtained VIN numbers of automobiles talked about within the C4ADS report from a journalist of an Asian tv community,” the assertion continued, utilizing the abbreviation for the Heart for Superior Protection Research. “We then proactively approached the U.N. and linked the journalists immediately with the authority to guarantee that the data may very well be material of investigations.”
The holes in sanctions go nicely past the importing of luxurious items. North Korea is elevating hundreds of thousands of {dollars} by means of the smuggling of commodities, the U.N. report says.