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SINGAPORE: Two people and a company dealing with wholesale trade were charged on Thursday (May 9) for supplying banned goods, including Pokka and Nescafe drinks, to North Korea.
The company is Eluva International, which faces 11 charges of supplying prohibited products to North Korea.
The two people charged are Eugene Lee Chun Foong, the director of Eluva International, and Koh Poh Choo, a woman linked to freight company Skyline Shipping, which allegedly aided Eluva International in its supply of prohibited goods. Both Eluva International and Skyline Shipping are registered in Singapore.
Lee, 49, and Koh, 57, are Singaporeans.
United Nations sanctions forbid a person in Singapore from exporting or transferring designated luxury items to North Korea. These include caviar, cosmetics and perfumes, and electronic items such as televisions and smartphones.
Eluva International has nine charges under the United Nations (Sanctions – Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) Regulations 2010 and two under the Regulation of Imports and Exports Regulations. Lee’s 11 charges mirror his company’s. He is said to have consented to the exports.
The charges allege that the company supplied around S$661,850 (US$488,094) in banned goods to a person in North Korea through Dalian, a city in the east of China near Pyongyang.
The goods comprise more than S$512,000 in spirits, supplied between 2013 and 2017, and assorted brands of perfumes amounting to S$2,950 provided on Mar 17, 2013.
Apart from these, Eluva International allegedly supplied around S$146,900 worth of “designated luxury items”, comprising Pokka Melon Milk, Nescafe Coffee, Coffee Mate and Pokka Strawberry Milk to North Korea via Dalian from November 2017 to January 2018.
A few of the charges named Lee, Irene Cho, Loh Mun Sang and company Rejo Beverages as co-conspirators.
Rejo Beverages was fined S$160,000 and its director, Loh, jailed for six weeks in 2023 for supplying banned goods to North Korea, according to a report by the Straits Times.
Koh faces six charges for offences between 2017 and 2018 . She is alleged to have helped Skyline Shipping abet Eluva International’s supply of prohibited goods and designated luxury items to North Korea via Dalian.
These consist of Pokka Strawberry Milk, Pokka Melon Milk, Nescafe Coffee and Coffee Mate, worth about S$146,920, and assorted brands of spirits valued at around S$456,377.
All three cases will be heard in court again on Jun 6.
If convicted of contravening the United Nations Act, a person may be jailed up to 10 years, or fined up to S$500,000, or both. A company may be fined up to S$1 million.
For breaching the Regulation of Imports and Exports Regulations for a first time, a person may be jailed up to two years, or fined up to S$100,000 or up to three times the value of the goods, whichever is higher, or both.
