Seoul sanctions Russian over 'illegal' Pyongyang finances

South Korea has sanctioned a Russian national over his alleged involvement in North Korea's "illegal financial activities", authorities said Wednesday.

Pyongyang is under international sanctions over its atomic bomb and ballistic missile programmes, which have seen rapid progress under North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The South said it has sanctioned Choi Chon Gon, a former South Korean national who now holds Russian citizenship, for allegedly supporting the North with its illicit activities in violation of UN Security Council sanctions.

The decision is "the first case in which the South Korean government has designated an individual of Korean descent as a subject of unilateral sanctions", Seoul's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Choi has been accused of founding a North Korean front company in Mongolia to assist Pyongyang in evading sanctions to secure financing for its banned weapons programmes.

Seoul authorities also believe that he is running a separate, Russia-based trading company through a joint investment partnership with the chief of Pyongyang's state-run Foreign Trade Bank branch in Vladivostok.

Seoul has also sanctioned the North Korean chief of the bank's Vladivostok branch, as well as the two companies Choi has founded, the ministry said.

North Korea has doubled down on military development since diplomatic efforts collapsed in 2019, conducting a string of banned weapons tests, including test-firing multiple intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Kim declared his country last year an "irreversible" nuclear power and called for an "exponential" increase in weapons production, including tactical nuclear weapons.

According to Seoul, Tokyo and Washington, Pyongyang stole as much as $1.7 billion in cryptocurrency last year alone and supported its weapons programmes in part by gathering information through "malicious cyber activities".

AFP