North Korea spy agency runs arms operation out of Malaysia, UN says

Glocom – with its office in Kuala Lumpur – is a front company run by North Korean intelligence that sells battlefield radio equipment, according to a report by a UN panel.

View of the building housing Glocom's offices in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on February 7, 2017. Ebrahim Harris/Reuters

KUALA LUMPUR // North Korea has been selling military equipment in contravention of UN sanctions through a company that until recently listed its office in the Malaysian capital, according to a report to the Security Council.

Glocom – short for Global Communications Co – is a front company run by North Korean intelligence that sells battlefield radio equipment, the report by a UN panel says.

The report says Glocom is controlled by the Reconnaissance General Bureau, the North Korean intelligence agency tasked with overseas operations and weapons procurement.

Glocom advertised more than 30 radio systems for “military and paramilitary” organisations on its Malaysian website, glocom.com.my, which was taken down late last year.

The Glocom office listed on the site’s contacts section is on the second floor of a rundown building in Kuala Lumpur’s Little India neighbourhood. The door is unmarked and the mailbox outside is stuffed with unopened letters.

In fact, no company by that name exists in Malaysia, but the website was registered in 2009 by two Malaysian companies controlled by North Korean shareholders and directors.

However, Glocom does do business, the UN report says. Last July, 45 boxes of battlefield radios and accessories labelled Glocom were found an air shipment of North Korean military communications equipment that was intercepted while being sent from China to Eritrea.

Under UN resolution 1874, adopted in 2009, the arms embargo against North Korea was expanded to include military equipment and all “related materiel”.

But implementation of the sanctions “remains insufficient and highly inconsistent” among member countries, the UN report says, while North Korea is using “evasion techniques that are increasing in scale, scope and sophistication”.

According to the “WHOIS” database, which discloses website ownership, Glocom.com.my was registered in 2009 by an entity called International Global System using the Little India address. A similarly named company, International Golden Services, is listed as the contact point on Glocom’s website.

Glocom registered a new website, glocom-corp.com, in mid-December, this one showing no Malaysian contacts. Its most recent post is dated January 2017 and advertises new products, including a remote control system for a precision-guided missile.

Glocom is operated by the Pyongyang branch of a Singapore-based company called Pan Systems, the UN report says.

Louis Low, managing director of Pan Systems in Singapore, said his company used to have an office in Pyongyang from 1996 but officially ended relations with North Korea in 2010 and was no longer in control of any business there.

“They use [the] Pan Systems [name] and say it’s a foreign company, but they operate everything by themselves,” he said.

The UN report says Pan Systems Pyongyang utilised bank accounts, front companies and agents mostly based in China and Malaysia to buy components and sell completed radio systems.

The Pan Systems representative in Kuala Lumpur is a North Korean by the name of Kim Chang-hyok, the report says.

Mr Kim, who also goes by James Kim, was a founding director of International Golden Services. He is also director and shareholder of four other companies in Malaysia operating in the fields of IT and trade, according to the Malaysian company registry.

The UN panel which prepared the report says it asked the Malaysian government if it would expel Mr Kim and freeze the assets of International Golden Services and International Global System to comply with UN sanctions, but has yet to receive an answer.

Malaysia is one of the few countries in the world which had strong ties with North Korea. Their citizens can travel to each other’s countries without visas. But those ties have begun to sour after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s estranged half-brother was murdered at Kuala Lumpur’s international airport on February 13.

Glocom advertises and exhibits its wares without disclosing its North Korean connections but, besides the North Koreans linked to the company, clues on its website also point to its origins.

For instance, one photo shows a factory worker testing a Glocom radio system. A plaque nearby shows the machine he is using has won a uniquely North Korean award: “The Model Machine No 26 Prize”, named in honour of late leader Kim Jong-il, who is said to have efficiently operated Lathe No 26 at the Pyongyang Textile Factory when he was a student.

* Reuters