North Korean plane impounded, tons of weapons seized in Thailand

Originally posted by Britguy
Of course, the fact that the plane is registered in Georgia may just be a convenience thing.

It's like freighters and oil tankers being registered in Panama or Liberia or any other country that allows a flag of convenience.

The example of the Il-76 with a Georgian registration is an aerial equivalent of a flag of convenience.

Just to note: Pyongyang must be one of the quietest airports in the world. There is only one flight a day into the capital.

Flights arrive and depart from Beijing, Vladivostok and a few charters from Singapore and THAILAND!

Singapore, I would guess would be to launder the money, Thailand who knows!

One obscure source suggests the destination of the smuggled arms was Iran.

How?

A team of investigative Japanese journalists uncovered manifest documentation listing the cargo's intended destination: Mehrabad Airport, IATA code THR. Iran was the intended recipient of the North Korean weaponry, and at least one of the crates contained parts for the Taepodong-2 ICBM, which the Iranians could reverse-engineer as the Shahab-6.

NZ probes firm's links to arms shipment

''According to the information of the Kazakh diplomatic mission in Thailand, the detained Ilyushin-76 aircraft was ... rented to a New Zealand company, SP Trading Limited, to carry out the delivery of cargo,'' Kazakh foreign ministry spokesman Ilyas Omarov said.

A company called SP Trading is on the New Zealand companies register, with an office in Auckland. The only listed director is Lu Zhang and all the company shares are owned by another company, Vicam (Auckland) Ltd.

Vicam, in turn, is owned by Vanuatu-based GT Group. The company website says it provides services including privacy, legal tax avoidance and asset protection services.

Attempts by journalists to visit or contact Lu Zhang and SP Trading, which was incorporated in July this year, have been unsuccessful, New Zealand media reports said.

The below info may be a bit, uh, unverified, so take it with a grain of salt.

North Korean arms plane 'has links to New Zealand'

The listed owner of SP Trading is an Auckland-based company called Vican, which, in turn, is owned by GT Group, according to the Companies Office records.

However, attempts to contact the organisation proved fruitless. When The Times rang Ian Taylor, listed as GT Group’s marketing manager, his phone rang out and he did not return messages. An Auckland phone number for Michael Taylor, who completed Lu Zhang’s form applying for directorship of SP Trading is no longer obtainable.

The Auckland number for GT Group no longer works and workers in the office block listed as its address said that they had never heard of the company. A woman who answered the Vanuatu number listed for the group insisted that no one who worked for the company was at that number.

In an email to New Zealand’s National Business Review newspaper, Michael Taylor denied that GT Group had anything to do with SP Trading and claimed that it was incorporated into the group on instruction from a UK-based company, which he did not name.

The founder of GT Group, Geoffrey Taylor, was born in Cleethorpes, South Humberside. According to his website, Mr Taylor is also a director of a corporate services company, Global Fin Net, which offers help on company formations as well as other financial services. Global Fin Net has offices in the UK, as well as Australia, New Zealand and New York. Mr Taylor did not respond to messages from The Times

[edit]It looks like a vietnamese news site ran the same story as above, maybe the original source, but google won't translate.



[edit on 12/18/09 by makeitso]

reply to post by makeitso


All one big shell game, designed to hide transactions behind layer after layer of paperwork only companies, holding companies, subsidiaries who, for the most part, do either not physically exist or use a PO Box number as an address.

It's one of the oldest games when it comes to money laundering, drug smuggling, black ops etc. In other words, it's a criminal enterprise with an official rubber stamp. All legal and above board, until you try to track back and run into deliberate dead ends.

So I googled Global Finn Net and it lead me to www.geoffreytaylor.net

Which, besides talking about him working in Vanuatu says:

Geoffrey Taylor founded the GT Group of Companies for its owners. He has over 25 years experience in offshore jurisdictions covering the fields of Fund Management and Structures.

He is currently President of Southern Pacific University where the Faculty have elected him to the position of Professor; Director of Corporate services company Global Fin Net.

The University appears to exist only as an online / E-Campus.

A little more googling indicates that it is probably a Diploma Mill.


Sir Gefforey may have a bit o splainin to do in the near future.


[edit on 12/18/09 by makeitso]

According to the NY Times, SP Trading chartered the plane to

Union Top Management Ltd., a company registered in Hong Kong that was set up in November.

The document is signed by Dario Cabreros, who is described as the company’s representative.

They got that info from a report by International Peace Information Service which includes the contract, manifest, and flight plan.