Australia: A Chinese man is being held in Australia over his alleged role in a tobacco smuggling scheme that generated $700m (£570m) for North Korea.
Jin Guanghua now awaits extradition to the US, where he faces prosecution.
He is accused of supplying tobacco to Pyongyang for roughly a decade. It is unclear whether he contests the claim.
US authorities allege the tobacco trade allowed Kim Jong Un’s regime to make and sell counterfeit cigarettes to help fund its weapons programme.
Australia’s Attorney-General’s Department confirmed that Mr Jin had been detained in Melbourne in March last year, and that his “extradition matter” was ongoing.
“The individual is wanted to face prosecution in the US for a number of sanctions, bank fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy offences,” it said in a statement on Tuesday.
According to US court documents, the scheme Mr Jin was allegedly involved in was run through a series of North Korean “state owned companies” and financed by its banks.
“Chinese front companies” were then used to conduct transactions through the US financial system, bypassing sanctions and bringing millions of dollars into Pyongyang, the documents say.
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