Exclusive | The accidental sanctions breaker? Chinese trader ‘may be unwilling player’ in North Korean nuclear game

A Liaoning businesswoman charged by the United States with conspiring to evade US sanctions against North Korea is a low-­profile person and might have been unwillingly dragged into the case, according to people who know her.

Ma Xiaohong, 44, founder of trading firm Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development, built a thriving business through her ties with senior Pyongyang officials, including one who was executed almost three years ago.

Ma is also linked to a vote-rigging scandal in Liaoning’s legislature, but sources said she was a low-profile businesswoman who was more interested in making money than playing politics.

On Monday, the US Justice Department unsealed criminal charges against the company and four of its executives: Ma, general manager Zhou ­Jianshu, deputy general manager Hong Jinhua and financial manager Luo Chuanxu. The US Treasury ­Department also blacklisted the firm on the same day.

A businessperson who knows Ma said Ma had once said that ­doing business with North Korea was “by no means an easy task”. The source also said Ma could have been dragged into supplying materials for nuclear processing against her will. “Ma worked tirelessly for years before succeeding in growing her business to have a turnover of hundreds of millions of yuan,” the source said.