Montag, 18. Dezember 2017

Why sanctions doesn't work with North Korea...

...or: Chatting with Chinese secretary

I did some research about the North Korean Tanchon Mining Machine Factory, a well known actor in the DPRK, often mentioned in various reports and a factory the North Koreans are proud of.

Looking for this factory I was guided to one company in China, named Xinhai Machine. Why? Because on their website they are aggregating news from their industry.Beside others they offered me an article in an North Korean journal I sometimes read anyway:


Staying a few seconds on their website I received friendly  help:


I didn't want to frustrate my business-minded star and so I started an interesting chat, which offered me some insights into trading with - firstly - totally unaware people:


  Due to the easy atmosphere I decided to be straightforward:



Following the email is easy and I found a few interesting clues, e.g. about their participation in the 12th International Exhibition of Mine, Mining, Construction Machinery and Related Equipment in Iran (2016):
 Unfortunately even the other search results showed nothing unusual, e.g. the one I found in the Cayman Islands Gazette from Monday, 25 September 2017, Issue No. 20/2017, page - which one should examine if this is related to the company I was chatting with:


Etc. etc. etc.

More interesting was looking for all the various email-addresses Xinhai seems to use, beside others this one: marketing@ytxinhai.com, which leads me to  the website http://www.xinhaimining.com/. The contact details are precise and show that both websites mentioned here are representing the same company. The following grim face is from Mr. Ding Hui:
This is what I meant with DPRK: North Korea. It seems that Xinhai really doesn't sell CNC machines, but any other mining stuff wouldn't be the problem. They are more or less open to any business and promote it frankly:

 Their websites mentions an interesting project which is possibly sanctioned:

Obviously this project is up-to-date:

Due to my tight timetable I didn't dig deeper, but I am  sure behind those friendly faces in Iran, Sudan etc. something is to find:

My chat showed me again how simple it is for the regime in Pyongyang to circumvent sanctions and to gain money. A trader who is asking about the meaning of "DPRK" will not hesitate to deliver any item to PYC.