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

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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.

Ng’s parents had long engaged in business with North Korea before the UN imposed sanctions on the country.

When the North Korean owner of the chain was failing to make payments for the shipments he received, Ng devised an invoice-financing fraud whereby he used 81 fictitious invoices to deceive five banks into granting his firm more than US$95 million in trade financing loans.

His company, T Specialist International, was slapped with a S$880,000 (US$645,412) fine.

His accomplice, Chinese national Wang Zhiguo, was convicted of 10 charges of abetting to cheat the banks and sentenced to one year in jail. Wang is a permanent resident in the city state.

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“This case is not simply concerned with illicit trade with the DPRK in breach of UN sanctions” but also involved an invoice financing fraud, Judge Bala Reddy said in sentencing them. DPRK is the acronym for the North’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“The sentences imposed in this case must unmistakably carry the deterrent message,” he said.

It also reinforces Singapore’s “determination to stamp out any international criminal activity that is carried out from within our shores,” he added.