NEWS
S'PORE BUSINESSMAN FINED USD123,300 & JAILED 6 WEEKS FOR SELLING WINES & SPIRITS TO N.KOREA
By Susan Lewis
20-4-2023
Credit: Micha Brandli/Unsplash
The owner of a Singapore alcoholic drinks company was given six weeks’ jail and fined SGD160,000 (USD123,300) today for supplying wines and spirits worth more than SGD1.7 million to North Korea.
Loh Mun Sang, 43 and owner of Rejo Beverages, was found to have violated United Nations sanctions which banned the supply of luxury goods, including wines and spirits, to North Korea.
According to the prosecutor, Rejo Beverages had supplied wines and spirits worth more than SGD1.7million to a company called Benata between July 2016 and January 2018.
Benata, owned by businessman Zheng Shiqiang, 50, was involved in supplying wines and spirits to a supermarket in North Korea.
The prosecutor said when Beneta staff first approached Loh to order the wines and spirits, they informed him that the goods will be shipped to North Korea.
“Loh therefore knew that the goods that Rejo sold to Beneta are to be supplied to the supermarket in North Korea. Rejo had thus indirectly supplied the goods to a person (there),” said deputy public prosecutor Jordon Li.
Li added that Loh would instruct Rejo Beverages’ staff to follow up with Beneta on the sales of the goods as well as the subsequent shipping arrangements.
According to court documents, Beneta shipped the goods to Dalian city in northeastern China where they would then be transported to the supermarket in North Korea.
Loh is expected to surrender himself at the State Courts on 9 June to begin serving his sentence, while Zheng’s case is pending.
The United Nations banned the sale of luxury items to North Korea in 2006 in response to the country’s testing of nuclear weapons.
(the writer can be contacted at: info@thewinechronicle.com)
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