California man who admitted shipping weapons to North Korea is sentenced to 8 years in prison

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California man has been sentenced to eight years in prison after admitting to shipping weapons and ammunition to North Korea that he said were to be used for a surprise attack on South Korea, authorities said Tuesday.

Shenghua Wen, 42, came to the U.S. from China on a student visa in 2012 and remained in the country illegally after it expired, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

Wen pleaded guilty in June to one count of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and one count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government, the statement says. He was sentenced on Monday.

Wen told investigators that before he entered the U.S., he met with North Korean officials at an embassy in China, where they instructed him to procure goods for the North Korean government. He also admitted that he tried to buy uniforms to disguise North Korean soldiers for the surprise attack, a federal complaint says.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has demonstrated an intent to deploy battlefield nuclear weapons along the North’s border with South Korea, a U.S. ally, recently delivering nuclear-capable missile launchers to frontline military units.

United Nations resolutions ban North Korea from importing or exporting weapons.

In 2022, North Korean officials contacted him via an online messaging app and instructed him to buy firearms, prosecutors said. He shipped two containers of weapons and other items from Long Beach, California, to North Korea via Hong Kong in 2023. He told U.S. authorities that he was wired about $2 million to do so, according to the complaint.

Authorities did not specify in the complaint the types of weapons that were exported.

To carry out his operation, Wen purchased a business in 2023 called Super Armory, a federal firearms licensee, for $150,000, and registered it under his business partner's name in Texas. He had other people purchase the firearms and then drove them to California, misrepresenting the shipments as a refrigerator and camera parts. Investigators did not say whether Wen had organized any shipments during his first 10 years in the U.S.

The FBI in September seized 50,000 rounds of ammunition from Wen's home in the LA suburb of Ontario that had been stored in a van parked in the driveway, the complaint says. They also seized a chemical threat identification device and a transmission detective device that Wen said he planned to send to the North Korean government for military use, the complaint says.