Today, the Australian Government has imposed targeted financial sanctions and travel bans on two individuals and two entities involved in financing North Korea’s unlawful weapons programs.
The North Korean entities and individuals sanctioned today facilitate North Korea’s use of fraudulent IT workers to raise revenue for the regime’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. These workers obtain remote employment while posing as nationals of other countries, constituting a violation of UN Security Council resolutions that prohibit North Korea’s export of labour.
These sanctions act on the findings of the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team, which continues to expose the global networks North Korea uses to evade UN Security Council sanctions, and the serious cyber security risks those networks pose to affected businesses.
Australian sanctions reinforce our ongoing efforts, alongside international partners, to disrupt North Korea’s illicit revenue-generating networks and increase pressure on the regime to comply with its international obligations and abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
We are taking this action in coordination with international partners, including the European Union.
We call on North Korea to comply fully with UN Security Council resolutions and to take concrete steps towards complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation.
