[Yonhap News Photo]
State prosecutors have indicted two South Koreans on charges of aiding North Korean operatives who attempted to smuggle a large number of second-hand tires for military vehicles into the reclusive state, officials said.
According to the Seoul Central Prosecutors' Office, the two people allegedly helped the operatives of the North's Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB), the North's top military intelligence agency, in the smuggling scheme between November 2014 and June last year, in breach of the National Security Law.
During the period, the two, identified only by their surnames, Han and Kim, allegedly coordinated with the North Korean agents in smuggling the tires that Pyongyang has had difficulty securing since Seoul imposed economic sanctions on the communist state in May 2010 in retaliation for the sinking of a South Korean warship.
The pair sent 1,000 small tires and 263 big tires to a port in China's northeastern city of Dalian in June last year as if they had legitimately exported them to China. They, then, tried to send the tires to the North's western port city of Nampo, investigators said.
But the smuggling attempt was foiled as the Chinese customs authorities cracked down on it and sent the tires back to South Korea, the investigators said.
"There were sufficient possibilities that the large tires, in particular, could be converted for military use," a prosecution official said, declining to be identified. "The (two South Koreans) were aware (of such possibilities) when they attempted to smuggle them out of the country."
In addition to the charges of aiding the North Korean agents, Han is also alleged to have helped the agents explore the possibilities of circulating counterfeit US dollars in South Korea, the prosecution said.
(Yonhap)
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
