On September 19, the US Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions against one individual and 5 companies involved in illegal financial transactions between Russia and North Korea.
The illegal financial network between Moscow and Pyongyang worked with two state-sanctioned banks of North Korea, the Foreign Trade Bank (FTB) and Korea Kwangson Banking Corporation (KKBC). It is through these institutions that North Korea receives foreign currency to finance state programs to create weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles.
In a scheme orchestrated by the Central Bank of Russia, MRB Bank in Georgia’s South Ossetia region, occupied by Russia, acted as a cut-out for a designated Russian TSMRBank to establish a covert banking relationship with the FTB. TSMRBank's vice president, Dmitry Yuryevich Nikulin, facilitated cash deposits from the FTB to MRB.
MRB Bank used part of North Korean accounts to pay for fuel exports from Russia to the DPRK. The Russian Financial Corporation Bank JSC is also involved in financial schemes, together with the Foreign Trade Bank of the DPRK, they established a front company in Moscow through which Pyongyang received funds. The Russian Timer Bank also participated in this scheme, which transferred millions of dollars to the Moscow company Stroytreyd LLC for the FTB.
As a result, all property and interests in the property of the designated persons described above that are in the US or in the possession or control of US persons were blocked.
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