Singapore man gets 34 months in jail for exporting luxury goods to North Korea

Ng Kheng Wah supplied the items worth US$4.4 million to a department store chain in the hermit kingdom in breach of UN sanctions

Ng’s company was fined US$645,412 and his accomplice was sentenced to one year in jail

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The exported luxury items included wines, perfumes and jewellery. Photo: SCMP

Published: 8:00am, 23 Nov 2019Updated: 8:00am, 23 Nov 2019

A Singapore court on Friday sentenced a 57-year-old local man to 34 months in jail for exporting luxury goods to North Korea and money laundering.

Ng Kheng Wah was convicted of a total of 10 charges of supplying luxury goods to North Korea and another 10 charges of engaging in a conspiracy to defraud banks.

He supplied the goods to a department store chain in North Korea for six years from 2010 in breach of UN Security Council sanctions aimed at stopping the country’s nuclear weapons programme.

The luxury items, worth more than S$6 million (US$4.4 million), included wines, perfumes, cosmetics, musical instruments and high-end jewellery.

The goods were shipped to the hermit kingdom through the Chinese port city of Dalian near North Korea, with his North Korean counterparts arranging for payment to be made through front companies in China and Hong Kong.

According to court documents, he did not declare the final port of delivery to Singapore Customs.

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