Indonesia-headquartered PT Bukit Muria Jaya (BMJ), a global supplier of cigarette paper products, will pay a fine of $1,561,570 and sign a deferred prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice for conspiring to commit bank fraud related to trade with North Korean customers.
BMJ has taken responsibility for its offenses and agreed to implement a compliance program to prevent and detect breaches of US rules and regulations. The company will also regularly report to the US Department of Justice about the implementation of the compliance program. BMJ also committed to report violations of relevant US laws to the Justice Department and to cooperate in the investigation of such offenses.
In a multinational scheme, BMJ knowingly and wilfully concealed the true nature of its transactions to be able to trade directly and indirectly with North Korea. The company deceived US banks into processing payments that breached US sanctions on North Korea.
US sanctions on North Korea disallowed US correspondent banks from processing wire transfers for North Korean customers. Thus, BMJ accepted such payments from unrelated third parties. In doing so, BMJ evaded the sanctions monitoring and compliance systems of US banks, which made these banks approve transactions that are in fact prohibited by law.
Source: US Department of Justice