16 From Tanker Ship Charged for Alleged Smuggling, Illegal Entry
Hun Sirivadh
Fri Mar 6, 2020 2:36 pm

The Preah Sihanouk Provincial Court has charged 16 foreign nationals who were aboard a tanker ship that entered Cambodian waters last week for allegedly smuggling goods and illegally entering Cambodian territory.

The ship, registered as a Cameroon-flagged vessel with the name Courageous, was bearing the Cambodian flag when it entered the nation’s waters, despite the government repealing its “flag of convenience” scheme five years ago, an official said earlier this week.*

Cambodian maritime authorities arrested the 16-member crew, including 12 Burmese and four Indonesians, and sent them to court for questioning on Tuesday.

Court spokesman Lim Bunheng told VOD on Wednesday that the 16 men were accused of illegally entering Cambodia’s maritime territory under Article 29 of the Law on Immigration and attempting to smuggle goods within the nation’s waters under Articles 11 and 74 of the Law on Customs.

If convicted, the men face one to 18 months in prison, and fines of between one and three times the amount of customs tax and duty avoided.
https://vodenglish.news/16-from-tanker- ... gal-entry/

* A number of forum members wondered why the ship was flying a Cambodian flag. Here's a link to a CEO forum discussion thread on Cambodia's dodgy "flag of convenience" history: newsworthy/cambodia-stop-issuing-flags- ... 10466.html

Sounds a bit unfair to me. I would think the crew had no say in where the ship was going, infact probably didn't even know where they were.
As for the captain and navigator ,,, probably guilty ,,, and of following their bosses orders.

US Takes Ownership Of Ship Suspected In N Korea Oil Scheme
Last Updated:July 31, 2021, 05:54 IST

New York (AP) A tanker ship allegedly used in an illegal scheme to smuggle oil to North Korea has a brand-new owner: the US government. A federal judge in New York City issued a judgment of forfeiture Friday authorizing the US to take ownership of the 2,734-ton M/T Courageous, which is currently in Cambodia.

The Courageous is permanently out of service, Manhattan US Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement. Prosecutors say the ship delivered petroleum products to North Korea through ship-to-ship transfers and direct shipments to the North Korean port of Nampo.

One exchange caught on satellite imagery showed the M/T Courageous transferring more than USD 1.5 million worth of oil to a North Korea-flagged ship, prosecutors said. The deliveries and related transactions that were made with US currency through US banks violated US and United Nations sanctions on North Korea, prosecutors said.

Cambodian authorities, acting on a US warrant, seized the M/T Courageous in March 2020 and have held it there since. The ship’s suspected owner and operator, Kwek Kee Seng, of Singapore, remains at large.

US prosecutors have charged Kwek with conspiracy to evade economic sanctions and money laundering conspiracy. Court records do not list a lawyer who could speak on Kwek’s behalf. Prosecutors say Kwek and his co-conspirators engaged in an extensive scheme to evade sanctions by using vessels, including the M/T Courageous, to covertly deliver vital fuel supplies to North Korea while other ships were barred from doing so.

They allegedly tried to hide their scheme by using shell companies, lying to international shipping authorities and falsely identifying the M/T Courageous as a different ship. (AP) .
https://www.news18.com/news/world/us-ta ... 28459.html
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor

The tanker reportedly belongs to Singapore national, Kwek Kee Seng, who is now on the run.

US seizes tanker used to evade North Korea sanctions
31 Jul 2021

The United States has seized a Singapore-owned oil tanker that was used to make oil deliveries to North Korea in violation of international sanctions, the Justice Department said.

A New York federal judge issued a judgement of forfeiture authorising the US to take ownership of the M/T Courageous, which is currently in Cambodia.

The ship, which has a capacity of 2,734-tonne, was bought by Singaporean national Kwek Kee Seng, who remains at large, according to a Justice Department statement on Friday.

The statement said the ship was reportedly used to transfer oil products to North Korean vessels and to make direct shipments to the North Korean port of Nampo.

“Criminal charges of conspiracy to evade economic sanctions on the DPRK and money laundering conspiracy are pending against the alleged owner and operator of the Courageous, Kwek Kee Seng, a Singaporean national who remains at large,” it said, using the acronym of North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/3 ... orth-korea

What a twist

Wonder how many Nampo petrol drops the absent Singaporean got away with before this

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Southern District of New York
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, July 30, 2021
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces Forfeiture Of Oil Tanker Used To Violate Sanctions Against North Korea

Audrey Strauss, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Mark J. Lesko, the Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security, and William F. Sweeney Jr., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced today the entry of a judgment of forfeiture regarding the M/T Courageous, a 2,734-ton oil products tanker used to make illicit deliveries of petroleum products through ship-to-ship transfers with vessels flagged in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“DPRK” or “North Korea”) and direct shipments to the North Korean port of Nampo. Payments to purchase the Courageous, to obtain oil for supplying to North Korea using the Courageous, and to procure necessary services for the Courageous were made using U.S. dollars through unwitting U.S. banks, in violation of U.S. law and United Nations Security Council resolutions. On April 23, 2021, a civil forfeiture action was filed against M/T Courageous. Criminal charges of conspiracy to evade economic sanctions on the DPRK and money laundering conspiracy are pending against the alleged owner and operator of the Courageous, KWEK KEE SENG, a Singaporean national who remains at large. U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni issued today’s judgment of forfeiture.


The M/T Courageous

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said: “Today’s judgment reflects that the sanctions-evading ship, the Courageous, has been forfeited to the United States and will no longer be used to enable North Korea’s pattern of evading the global community’s prohibitions on support for that regime. Thanks to the extraordinary cooperation between U.S. and Cambodian law enforcement authorities, the Courageous is permanently out of service.”

According to documents filed in the civil forfeiture action and the allegations contained in the criminal complaint filed against KWEK KEE SENG in Manhattan federal court:[1]

Pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”) and the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016 (“NKSPEA”), the DPRK and individuals or entities that the Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) has determined are involved in the facilitation of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are prohibited from engaging in transactions with U.S. persons or using the U.S. financial system. The United Nations Security Council has similarly imposed economic sanctions on North Korea, prohibiting among other things the conduct of ship-to-ship transfers with DPRK-flagged vessels and the provision of petroleum products to the DPRK.

KWEK and his co-conspirators engaged in an extensive scheme to evade these U.S. and U.N. sanctions by using vessels under their control to covertly transport fuel to North Korea, thereby providing a critical resource for the North Korean government and for DPRK-based companies. One of those vessels was M/T Courageous – formerly known as the Sea Prima – which was purchased by KWEK through front companies in order to further KWEK and his co-conspirators’ scheme to evade sanctions and launder money. Among other things, for a four-month period between August and December 2019, M/T Courageous illicitly stopped transmitting information regarding its location, during which time satellite imagery shows that M/T Courageous both engaged in a ship-to-ship transfer of more than $1.5 million worth of oil to a North Korean ship, the Saebyol, which had been designated by OFAC, and traveled to the North Korean port of Nampo. KWEK and his co-conspirators took additional steps to hide the scheme by (1) operating a series of shell companies, (2) lying to international shipping authorities about M/T Courageous’s dealings with North Korea, and (3) falsely identifying M/T Courageous as another ship in order to evade detection.

In furtherance of the scheme, KWEK and his co-conspirators arranged for a variety of payments denominated in U.S. dollars that were processed through U.S.-based correspondent accounts to purchase oil – including more than $1.5 million to purchase the oil that was transferred to the Saebyol, over $500,000 to buy M/T Courageous, and thousands more dollars to procure necessary services for M/T Courageous and another vessel, including registration fees, ship materials, and salary payments for crewmembers. KWEK and his co-conspirators overseas sought to conceal these sanctions-evading transactions by, among other things, using front companies to disguise the nature of the transactions; disguising location information for vessels carrying illicit shipments; and conducting ship-to-ship fuel transfers on the open sea in an attempt to hide their counterparties, such as the Saebyol.

Cambodian authorities seized M/T Courageous in March of 2020, and held the vessel pursuant to a U.S. seizure warrant, which was issued under seal on April 2, 2020. On April 23, 2021, the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a civil forfeiture complaint against M/T Courageous and the case was subsequently assigned to Judge Caproni, who issued today’s judgment of forfeiture.
In full: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/ma ... ns-against

Negotiations for the ship's release may take some time.
This whole Chinese fishing fleet disappeared into a semi-secret military establishment in a half hidden Koh Kong bay back in 2016 and were there for more than a year (from memory) after their "GPS mixup" - until the necessary "arrangements" for their release were sorted.

ps. The longtime defence minister, as well as being a hero and a patriot, is also a Koh Kong lad.
Lesson - Don't fcku with us Koh Kong boys on the water. )).
Even China.

SternAAlbifrons wrote: ↑Sun Aug 01, 2021 1:47 am Negotiations for the ship's release may take some time.
This whole Chinese fishing fleet disappeared into a semi-secret military establishment in a half hidden Koh Kong bay back in 2016 and were there for more than a year (from memory) after their "GPS mixup" - until the necessary "arrangements" for their release were sorted.

Related thread from 2017:
newsworthy/why-are-chinese-fishing-vess ... 12792.html