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WASHINGTON: A North Korean citizen extradited to the United States from Malaysia appeared in court on Monday to face money laundering charges.
Mun Chol-myong, 55, is the first North Korean citizen to be extradited to the United States, the Justice Department said.
Mun was not extradited by North Korea, but instead brought him to the United States from another “foreign country,” where he had been detained since May 2019, the department said in a statement.
The Justice Department did not identify the country involved, but North Korea broke diplomatic ties with Malaysia and closed its embassy on Sunday to protest Mun’s extradition.
Pyongyang called it an “unforgivable crime” carried out under “blind obedience” to American pressure.
The Justice Department said Mun is accused of laundering money through the US financial system between April 2013 and November 2018 to provide luxury goods to North Korea.
“The indictment alleges that Mun defrauded banks and laundered money in an effort to evade anti-proliferation sanctions imposed on North Korea by the United States and the UN,” said Assistant Attorney General John Demers.
“We will continue to use the scope of our laws to protect the American people from sanction evasion and other threats to national security.”
Alan Kohler, an FBI agent, said that “one of the FBI’s biggest counterintelligence challenges is bringing overseas defendants to justice, especially in the case of North Korea.
“Thanks to the FBI’s partnership with foreign authorities, we are proud to bring Mun Chol-myong to the United States to face justice, and we hope he will be the first of many,” Kohler said.
The Justice Department said Mun made an initial appearance Monday in federal court in Washington to face six counts of money laundering in transactions valued at more than $ 1.5 million.
The indictment alleges that Mun was affiliated with North Korea’s main intelligence organization, the General Reconnaissance Office.
Malaysia had been one of Pyongyang’s few allies, but ties were already strained following the 2017 assassination of leader Kim Jong-un’s half brother at the Kuala Lumpur airport.
After Pyongyang cut ties, Malaysia gave North Korean diplomats 48 hours to leave the country.
On Sunday, the North Korean flag and a plaque were removed from the country’s embassy, a mansion in an upscale area of Kuala Lumpur, and the doors were chained.
Malaysia denounced Pyongyang’s move and announced that it would close its mission in North Korea, whose operations had already been suspended since the assassination of Kim Jong-un’s half-brother.
