| Industrial Bank of Korea
Settles $1B Iran Sanctions Violations For $51M
in SDNY
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Decrypt
- LightRead - Honduras
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Source
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
April 20 – Amid the Covid-19
pandemic, many criminal cases
in the U.S. District Court for
the Southern District of New
York are being put over. On
April 20 the US Attorney for
the SDNY announced a case
again Industrial Bank of Korea
and its New York branch - but
a deferral for two years, in
exchange for $51 million:
"IBKNY and IBK
failed to promptly identify a
series of transactions that
violated the United States’
economic sanctions against
Iran (the “Zong
Transactions”): From
January 2011 until July 2011,
Kenneth Zong,[1] an American
citizen, and various primarily
Iranian co-conspirators
exploited bank accounts that
had been established at IBK
and at another bank to permit
certain forms of trade between
Korea-based entities and Iran
(the “CBI Won Accounts”), to
transfer U.S. Dollars (“USD”)
unlawfully to
Iranian-controlled
entities. In order to
evade U.S. sanctions, Zong and
his co-conspirators set up
shell companies in Korea,
Iran, and elsewhere, which
engaged in sham trade
transactions and submitted
fictitious documentation to
Korean banks, including IBK,
in order to facilitate the
transfer of Iranian funds from
the CBI Won Accounts to Korean
entities’ accounts, the
conversion of the funds into
USD, and the subsequent
transfer of USD from those
entities through U.S.
financial institutions to
other accounts controlled by
Zong and his co-conspirators
and/or for the benefit of Zong
and his co-conspirators.
IBKNY did not review and
identify the Zong Transactions
as unlawful until more than
five months after they began
to be processed through IBK,
after IBK had already
processed more than $1 billion
worth of such
transactions."
$51
million fine for $1 billion of
sanctions violations - is it a
good deal? In this
environment? Inner City Press
will continue to cover this
cases. This one is US v.
Industrial Bank of Korea, no
docket number provided, (UA).
***
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