Images of a gun and components of navy electronics that had been discovered on Shenghua Wen’s telephone.
Courtesy: U.S. Division of Justice
A Chinese nationwide was sentenced to eight years in jail for conspiring to illegally smuggle guns, ammunition, and delicate U.S. tech to North Korea, the Department of Justice mentioned Tuesday.
Shenghua Wen, 42, pleaded guilty in June to 1 depend every of conspiring to violate the Worldwide Emergency Financial Powers Act and performing as an unlawful agent of a international authorities.
Wen had admitted to concealing the contraband inside delivery containers that he falsely claimed had been crammed with shopper items sure for China.
Wen mentioned North Korean officers wired him about $2 million to purchase weapons and different merchandise, based on a criminal complaint in Los Angeles federal court docket.
U.S. District Decide Stephen Wilson sentenced Wen in that court docket on Monday.
Attorneys from the Federal Public Defenders Workplace, who represented Wen, didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
Wen, a Chinese language citizen who entered the U.S. in 2012, has been residing within the nation illegally since his pupil visa expired in December 2013, the DOJ mentioned.
He met with North Korean officers earlier than coming into the U.S., and so they directed him to acquire items for them, the DOJ mentioned.
Wen efficiently exported a minimum of two shipments of weapons and ammo from Lengthy Seaside, California, to North Korea, based on the complaint.
He recognized the contents of a type of delivery containers as a “refrigerator.”
When federal brokers searched his Ontario, California, house in August 2024, they seized a “chemical risk identification machine” and one other merchandise supposed to detect eavesdropping gadgets, the court docket doc mentioned.
Wen admitted at the moment that he had acquired these gadgets to ship to North Korea’s navy, based on the criticism.
Lower than a month later, the feds seized 50,000 rounds of 9mm ammunition from Wen’s van, which he mentioned was additionally supposed to be despatched to North Korea, the doc mentioned.
He has been held in federal custody since his arrest in early December.
His conspiracy cost carried a most sentence of 20 years in jail.
