A Chinese national illegally living in the U.S. has been arrested for allegedly shipping weapons and ammunition to North Korea.
Shenghua Wen, 41, entered the country on a student visa. Instead of returning to China according to the terms of the visa, he remained in the country illegally after it expired. While illegally living in Ontario, California, he worked with others to export shipments of firearms, ammunition and military items from California to North Korea, the Department of Justice said.
Wen was charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which carries a statutory maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison.
According to an affidavit filed on Nov. 26, Wen obtained firearms, ammunition, and export-controlled technology with the intention of shipping them to North Korea in violation of federal law. Working with co-conspirators, Wen allegedly exported multiple shipments to North Korea by concealing items inside shipping containers leaving from a port in Long Beach to Hong Kong and then to North Korea.
An investigation was conducted by the FBI, Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security.
After obtaining search warrants, law enforcement officers seized several items from Wen’s home that had yet to be shipped to North Korea. On Aug. 14, they seized a chemical threat identification device and a hand-held broadband receiver that detects eavesdropping devices, which they believed Wen planned to send to North Korea for military use.
On Sept. 6, they seized approximately 50,000 rounds of 9mm bullets they believe Wen planned to ship to North Korea.
After reviewing his iPhone, they discovered that Wen smuggled items from Long Beach to Hong Kong with the destination being North Korea in December 2023. Law enforcement officers retrieved messages from multiple cellphones that revealed he communicated with co-conspirators earlier this year about shipping military-grade equipment to North Korea.
Some of the messages included photographs Wen allegedly sent of items controlled for export under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, according to the complaint. Investigators also found emails and text messages Wen sent between January and April to a U.S.-based broker about obtaining a civilian plane engine. Several text messages on his iPhone included price negotiations for the plane and its engine, authorities said.
In addition to violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Wen violated the terms of his visa, which prohibited him from possessing firearms and ammunition, federal authorities said. He also violated federal law banning weapons smuggling and multiple sanctions imposed against the communist regime of North Korea.
Wen is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California and the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.
The announcement was made after the greatest number of Chinese illegal border crossers were reported illegally entering the country in U.S. history – more than 176,000 – under the Biden administration, The Center Square first reported.
The overwhelming majority are single military-age men. They total more than 176 U.S. Army battalions. Put another way, they total more than 35 Army brigades, or nearly 12 divisions or nearly four corps, according to U.S. Department of Defense data.
Under President Joe Biden, numerous national security concerns were raised by members of Congress in response to Chinese nationals breaching U.S. military bases and other sensitive sites nearly 100 times, FBI warnings of Chinese cyberattacks against U.S. critical infrastructure, Chinese operatives fueling the fentanyl crisis and facilitating human and drug trafficking, operating a spy base in Cuba, operating secret “police stations” and intelligence outposts in the U.S. to target Chinese Americans or allegedly conduct espionage, among other concerns, The Center Square reported.
Last month, Biden issued an executive order extending a national emergency “to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted by the threat from securities investments that finance certain companies of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).”
The U.S. House also passed bills to counter the CCP threat that went nowhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
