In the largest penalty of its kind, tobacco giant British American Tobacco has agreed to pay U.S. authorities nearly $630 million to settle charges of violating U.S. sanctions on North Korea.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The hefty penalty is part of a \u201cdeferred prosecution agreement\u201d that the company has reached with the U.S. Justice Department, officials announced on Tuesday.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the same time, a Singapore-based subsidiary of BAT pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The settlement caps a long-running U.S. investigation into BAT\u2019s alleged violations of U.S. sanctions on North Korea.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2007, the company spun off its North Korea sales to a third-party company, announcing that it was no longer doing business in the country.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But in reality, BAT continued to do business in North Korea through the third-party company that was controlled by its Singapore subsidiary, according to court documents.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Over the 10-year period, BAT and its subsidiary sold nearly $428 million worth of tobacco products to North Korea.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To pay BAT, North Korean purchasers allegedly used front companies to hide the transactions from U.S. financial institutions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
A ‘warning to companies’<\/p>\n
Matthew Olsen, assistant attorney general for national security, said the nearly $630 million BAT has agreed to pay is the largest penalty ever imposed by the Justice Department in connection with U.S. sanctions on North Korea.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the latest warning to companies everywhere about the cost and the consequences of violating U.S. sanctions,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHolding corporate wrongdoers who violate U.S. sanctions accountable is an important priority for the Justice Department,\u201d Olsen said at a news conference.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a statement, BAT chief executive Jack Bowles expressed regret for the \u201cmisconduct,\u201d adding that \u201cwe fell short of the highest standards rightly expected of us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
BAT said it had stopped all business activities related to North Korea in 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Three accused in tobacco scheme<\/p>\n
Separately, the Justice Department unsealed charges against North Korean banker Sim Hyon-Sop, 39, and Chinese nationals Qin Guoming, 60, and Han Linlin, 41, in connection with an illegal effort to facilitate the sale of tobacco to North Korea.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The three men are accused of engaging in a scheme, from 2009 to 2019, to buy $74 million worth of leaf tobacco for North Korean state-owned cigarette manufacturers and using front companies to hide North Korea\u2019s involvement from the U.S. banks that processed the transactions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The banks would have frozen, blocked, investigated or declined to process the transactions had they known they were connected to trade with North Korea, the Justice Department said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The tobacco purchases resulted in nearly $700 million in revenue for the North Korean manufacturers, one of which was owned by the country\u2019s military.\u00a0<\/p>\n
U.S. prosecutors say cigarette trafficking is a significant source of revenue for the North Korean government and helps fund its nuclear weapons program.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Every $1 North Korea spends on smuggled tobacco products generates revenue of up to $20, prosecutors say.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The U.S. State Department announced a reward of $5 million for information leading to the arrest of Sim, and a reward of $500,000 for Qin and Han.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The charges against the three men are unrelated to BAT\u2019s violation of U.S. sanctions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the largest penalty of its kind, tobacco giant British American Tobacco has agreed to pay U.S. authorities nearly $630 million to settle charges of violating U.S. sanctions on North Korea.\u00a0 The hefty penalty is part of a \u201cdeferred prosecution agreement\u201d that the company has reached with the U.S. Justice Department, officials announced on Tuesday.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":495,"featured_media":8514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/495"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}