Chinese national sentenced for North Korea smuggling
Photos of a gun and parts of military electronics that were found on Shenghua Wen’s phone, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Courtesy: U.S. Department of Justice
A Chinese national living in the U.S. was sentenced to eight years in prison for conspiring to illegally smuggle guns, ammunition and sensitive U.S. technology to North Korea, the Department of Justice said Tuesday.
Shenghua Wen, 42, pleaded guilty in June to one count each of conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government.
Wen had admitted to concealing the contraband inside shipping containers that he falsely claimed were filled with consumer goods bound for China.
Wen said North Korean officials wired him about $2 million to buy guns and other products, according to a criminal complaint in Los Angeles federal court.
U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson sentenced Wen in that court on Monday.
Attorneys from the Federal Public Defenders Office, who represented Wen, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Wen, a Chinese citizen who entered the U.S. in 2012, has been living in the country illegally since his student visa expired in December 2013, the DOJ said.
He met with North Korean officials before entering the U.S., and they directed him to procure goods for them, the DOJ said.
Wen successfully exported at least two shipments of guns and ammunition from Long Beach, California, to North Korea, according to the complaint.
He identified the contents of one of those shipping containers as a “refrigerator.”
When federal agents searched his Ontario, California, home in August 2024, they seized a “chemical threat identification device” and another item intended to detect eavesdropping devices, the court document said.
Wen admitted at that time that he had acquired those devices to send to North Korea’s military, according to the complaint.
Less than a month later, federal agents seized 50,000 rounds of 9mm ammunition from Wen’s van. Wen said the ammunition was also intended to be sent to North Korea, the document said.
He has been held in federal custody since his arrest in early December.
His conspiracy charge carried a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
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