Fili Sagapolutele Associated Press PAGO PAGO, American Samoa – A North Korean cargo ship seized by the U.S. because of suspicion it was used to violate international sanctions arrived at the capital of this American territory, where it will undergo inspections. The Wise Honest was slowly towed to the port of Pago Pago during a cloudy Saturday morning and docked at the main docking section of the port that afternoon. The trip from Indonesia took about three weeks and American Samoa, in the South Pacific, was chosen because of “its central strategic location,” U.S. Coast Guard public affairs officer Amanda Wyrick said. More:'We're courting danger': Trump suffers foreign policy setbacks in Iran, North Korea More:'We're courting danger': Trump suffers foreign policy setbacks in Iran, North Korea “We also have a good strong relationship and partnership with the American Samoan government,” Wyrick said. “With that being said, we also already have the resources that are able to ensure the security of the vessel but most importantly the Port of Pago Pago.” Indonesian authorities detained the ship in April 2018. Justice Department officials announced Thursday the U.S. had seized the ship. Asked as to how long the ship will be in the territory, Wyrick said the Department of Justice is “leading the investigation so they will be conducting that. Upon the conclusion of the investigation, the ship will be moved.” But she said the next destination is unknown. “I do know that Justice Department is going to do the investigation as fast as they can,” Wyrick added. She said she didn’t have the exact number of Coast Guard personnel or people from other federal agencies who have traveled to American Samoa for the investigation. “We have a marine and safety security team here from Honolulu,” Wyrick said. “We’re conducting random patrols, also conducting inspection of the vessel and the Port of Pago Pago, keep an eye on things such as security breaches or vandalization of the ship itself.” Officials are also making sure the port is protected, she said. “We especially in the Coast Guard, we understand the importance of the port. It’s a lifeline in getting goods to the islands,” Wyrick said. “So we want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can, to make sure that there’s absolutely no disruption to the flow of commerce coming in and out.” The U.S. government dispatched an inspection team to the ship before it docked in Pago Pago, she said. Wyrick noted there was an inspection conducted before leaving Indonesia and, because the ship has been at sea for three weeks, “it’s subject to the elements.” “The inspection of the ship before entering the harbor is to make sure the structure integrity of the boat is still intact. In that way, once we get the thumb’s up, and the green light, and the inspectors deem it safe, then it will enter the port,” Wyrick said. U.S. officials made the announcement of the ship’s seizure hours after North Korea fired two suspected short-range missiles toward the sea, the second weapons launch in five days and a possible signal that stalled talks over its nuclear weapons program are in trouble.<doc-sep>Bloomberg (Bloomberg) -- Credit Suisse Group AG executives ignored warnings from colleagues about troubled steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta as they channeled $1.2 billion of client funds to his businesses, according to people familiar with the matter.Bankers in Credit Suisse’s commodity trade-finance unit blacklisted Gupta’s Liberty Commodities Ltd. in 2016 because they suspected some of its deals weren’t legitimate, the people said. When they learned about two years later that the bank was lending to his companies through a suite of investment funds, which eventually grew to $10 billion, they flagged their worries to leaders in compliance and the division that housed the loans, one of the people said.The disclosure that Credit Suisse may have put clients at risk despite internal concerns over Gupta’s businesses adds a new twist to the debacle stemming from the March implosion of Greensill Capital, the finance firm at the center of the three-way relationship.Investigations, LawsuitsThe U.K. Serious Fraud Office is now investigating Gupta’s group of companies for suspected fraud, including in its financing deals with Greensill, according to a May 14 statement. Credit Suisse has sued to force Gupta’s Liberty Commodities into insolvency and has since shut the funds that made the loans and launched an internal investigation. Investors are staring at losses as the bank confronts embarrassing lawsuits.“We are currently focusing our efforts on recovering our investors’ money,” Will Bowen, a spokesman for Credit Suisse in London, said in an emailed statement, adding that the bank’s internal probe will focus on “all of the issues” linked to the funds. “We are committed to learning the lessons and will share the relevant lessons learnt at the appropriate time.”Andrew Mitchell, a spokesman for the Gupta Family Group Alliance, or GFG Alliance, a collective of businesses linked to Gupta including Liberty Commodities, denied any wrongdoing.The Greensill saga represents just one of the two disasters that rocked Credit Suisse in the first half of 2021. Since Greensill began unraveling, the bank has announced a $5.5 billion hit from the blowup at Archegos Capital Management.ApologiesFormer Chairman Urs Rohner apologized to shareholders and his successor, Antonio Horta-Osorio, who arrived at the end of April, has promised a sweeping strategy review.Chief Executive Officer Thomas Gottstein, who was head of the division that oversaw trade finance, wasn’t aware of the internal concerns about Gupta that had prompted the bank to cut him off, according to a person familiar with the matter.Employees at the trade-finance unit, which lends money for the buying and selling of commodities, cut ties with Gupta in 2016 after becoming skeptical toward his Liberty Commodities, the people said. They distrusted the documents the company provided, triggering doubts about its transactions, they said. In one example reported by Bloomberg, the company had presented another bank with what seemed to be duplicate shipping receipts. A spokesman for Gupta has denied any wrongdoing.Banking TiesLiberty Commodities pledged assets to Credit Suisse as security for borrowings in 2013 but by early 2016, all such commitments had been extinguished, indicating that the financing relationship had ceased, U.K. Companies House filings show. And while Gupta’s company listed the Swiss bank as one of its lenders in its 2014 annual report, it didn’t in the following year’s report, which is dated May 2016, according to the filings.Their counterparts at other banks, including Macquarie Group Ltd. and Sberbank PJSC, halted trading with Liberty Commodities around the same time because of similar concerns; Goldman Sachs Group Inc. also stopped in 2016, Bloomberg has reported.Nevertheless, executives at Credit Suisse’s asset-management division -- which creates investment products for clients and charges a fee for overseeing them -- began arranging a suite of funds focused on supply-chain finance in 2017. The entities bought securitized loans packaged by Greensill, a firm created by Australian businessman Lex Greensill. Much of the debts were linked to Gupta’s businesses.WarningsOfficials at the commodity trade-finance unit were concerned when they found out about the funds’ links to Gupta and took their fears to Thomas Grotzer, general counsel for the bank’s Swiss division. They also warned Luc Mathys and Lukas Haas, the bankers who helped oversee the trades at the asset-management unit.Grotzer was promoted last month to interim global head of compliance at Credit Suisse. He didn’t respond to requests for comment. Mathys, head of fixed-income at the asset-management division, and Haas, a portfolio manager, were put on temporary leave in March. Neither responded to requests for comment.The bank pushed ahead with the funds and marketed them to investors as being made up of short-term debt secured on invoices, assets considered so safe that Credit Suisse gave the largest vehicle its lowest rating for risk. Yet part of the loans were linked to mere possible future revenues.Other parts of the bank continued working with Gupta as well. Credit Suisse’s investment bankers were due to lead an initial public offering for Liberty’s U.S. steel arm, which was ultimately pulled, according to a statement from the company. Gupta also announced that the Swiss bank would finance his planned acquisition of Thyssenkrupp AG’s steel unit, which fell apart earlier this year.Credit Suisse has so far recouped about $5.9 billion of the $10 billion in these supply-chain funds, but it remains unclear how much will be returned ultimately to investors. Loans to Gupta’s businesses are among a batch of debts that are the “principal sources of valuation uncertainty,” the bank said earlier this month.Liberty Commodities’s external legal advisors investigated “alleged rumors concerning the paperwork” it used in 2019, according to Mitchell, the spokesman for GFG Alliance. They found no evidence to substantiate the rumors, nor was the company “ever subject to further complaints or proceedings,” he said.“LCL has ongoing banking relationships with separate financial institutions,” Mitchell said, referring to Liberty Commodities. “The trade-finance market has been hugely challenging for all but the very largest commodities traders in recent years. Nevertheless, no financial institution has been left out of pocket as a result of lending money to LCL. On the contrary, they have received substantial commercial returns.”More stories like this are available on bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.<doc-sep>Pyongyang said the US committed an "unlawful brutal robbery" by seizing a North Korean cargo ship over alleged sanctions violations. The US announced on Thursday that it had seized the "sanctions-busting ship", which it sailed for three weeks to American Samoa to investigate. North Korea said the US should consider "what kind of consequences their daylight robbery could bring to the political situation" and accused the US of violating agreements from a summit between the countries. North Korea said it will "watch the next move of the United States sharply." Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Pyongyang accused the US of "unlawful brutal robbery" after the Department of Justice seized a North Korean cargo ship and sailing it thousands of miles to American Samoa to investigate it over possible sanctions violations. A statement from an unnamed foreign ministry spokesperson carried by North Korea's official news agency, KCNA, on Tuesday demanded that the US return the ship immediately, and accused the US of violating agreements between the two countries. North Korea also warned that the US should "should carefully consider what kind of consequences their daylight robbery could bring to the political situation." The US Department of Justice announced on Thursday that it had seized the 17,000-ton ship, one of North Korea's largest, called the "Wise Honest." The North Korean cargo ship, Wise Honest, middle, was towed into the Pago Pago Harbor on Saturday, May 11, 2019, in Pago Pago, American Samoa. AP Photo/Fili Sagapolutele It accused the ship of making deliveries of coal and heavy machinery that violate US and UN sanctions on North Korea, and said that it was going to investigate the ship. The ship arrived in American Samoa, a US territory, on Saturday after a three-week journey, The Associated Press reported. Read more: The US seized a North Korean ship and moved it thousands of miles to check whether it's being used to violate sanctions Assistant Attorney General Demers called the "Wise Honest" a "sanctions-busting ship," and said the US would ensure that North Korea complies with the international sanctions, which include bans on exporting lead and coal in an effort to stop North Korea funding its weapons programs. North Korea's statement said that the UN's sanctions "abused our sovereignty in an arrogant manner." Demers warned on Thursday that it will move to make sure North Korea complies with the sanctions: "North Korea, and the companies that help it evade US and UN sanctions, should know that we will use all tools at our disposal — including a civil forfeiture action such as this one, or criminal charges — to enforce the sanctions enacted by the U.S. and the global community." The US also accused North Korea of "concealing the origin" of the cargo ship and said it was using US financial institutions to help fund the ship. But North Korea accused the US of violating the spirit of the agreement reached between North Korean Leader and US President Donald Trump at a summit in June 2018. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump at their summit in June 2018. AP Photo/Evan Vucci That summit saw both leaders agree in vague terms to the denuclearization of the entire Korean peninsula and to better relations between the two countries, but a second summit between the leaders collapsed in February 2019 over sanctions and the extent to which North Korea would shut down its nuclear program. North Korea said that by seizing the ship the US had committed a "ridiculous act of compromising their national laws against other countries" and said that its action was "a rash violation of universal international law, which in no case could be subject to the jurisdiction of any other country." Read more: Kim Jong Un reportedly demanded to hang out with 'famous' basketball players during nuclear negotiations with US It also said that the US' global influence is waning. "The age when the United States moved the world at will, has already passed," the statement said, adding that the US would be making the "biggest miscalculation" if it thought it could control North Korea. "We will watch the next move of the United States sharply."<doc-sep>The US has sailed a North Korean cargo ship thousands of miles to American Samoa to investigate it over sanctions violations. The US is accusing the 17,000-ton ship, one of North Korea's largest cargo ships, of illicit coal shipments that violate US and UN sanctions. The assistant attorney general said that US "will use all tools at our disposal ... to enforce the sanctions enacted by the U.S. and the global community." The US accuses North Korea of "concealing the origin" of the ship and of using US financial institutions to "fund weapons programs which will be used to threaten our nation." Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. The US seized a North Korean ship and sailed it thousands of miles to check whether it has been used to violate international sanctions. The US alleges that the "Wise Honest," North Korea's second-largest cargo ship, was making illicit shipments of coal and heavy machinery — in violation of US and UN sanctions on North Korea. The Department of Justice announced Thursday that it had seized the 17,000-ton ship, the first time a North Korean ship has been commandeered over sanctions violations. The announcement came after North Korea appeared to launch two short-range missiles in a test, adding further tensions to its relations with the US. The Wise Honest arrived in the port of Pago Pago in the US territory of American Samoa on Saturday after a three-week journey, The Associated Press reported. Read more: The US just announced a rare seizure of a North Korean ship carrying banned coal — here's why the US took it and what could come next Assistant Attorney General Demers called the "Wise Honest" a "sanctions-busting ship" and said the US would ensure that North Korea complies with the international sanctions. "This sanctions-busting ship is now out of service," Demers said on Thursday. The US brought the North Korean ship, first detained by Indonesia, to American Samoa. Google Maps/Business Insider "North Korea, and the companies that help it evade US and UN sanctions, should know that we will use all tools at our disposal — including a civil forfeiture action such as this one, or criminal charges — to enforce the sanctions enacted by the U.S. and the global community." "We are deeply committed to the role the Justice Department plays in applying maximum pressure to the North Korean regime to cease its belligerence." Read more: A 'one in a million' satellite image captured the exact moment of North Korea's latest missile launch The UN Security Council has banned North Korea from exporting commodities like coal, lead, and iron, in a bid to prevent it from funding its nuclear and weapons programs. The Deparment of Justice accused North Korea of "concealing the origin of their ship" and accused Korea Songi Shipping Company, which was using the ship, of violating US law by paying US dollars for improvements and purchases for the ship through oblivious US financial institutions. The North Korean cargo ship, Wise Honest, middle, was towed into the Pago Pago Harbor on Saturday, May 11, 2019, in Pago Pago, American Samoa. AP Photo/Fili Sagapolutele "This seizure should serve as a clear signal that we will not allow foreign adversaries to use our financial systems to fund weapons programs which will be used to threaten our nation," Demers said. US Coast Guard public affairs officer Amanda Wyrick told the AP that the US would investigate the ship in American Samoa. She did not say where the ship would be brought after the investigation was complete. Read more: Here are the tactics that make North Korean artillery so dangerous The ship was first detained by Indonesia in April 2018, because it was not broadcasting a signal required to give information to other ships and authorities, the Department of Justice said.<doc-sep>
The Wise Honest was slowly towed to the port of Pago Pago during a cloudy Saturday morning and docked at the main docking section of the port that afternoon. A view from the top of a two story building in Fagatogo village overlooking the Port of Pago Pago, as the North Korean cargo ship, Wise Honest, docks at the main docking section of Pago Pago Harbor, Saturday, May 11, 2019, in Pago Pago, American Samoa. The North Korean cargo ship was seized by the U.S. because of suspicion it was used to violate international sanctions. It arrived Saturday at the capital of this American territory. (AP Photo/Fili Sagapolutele) The North Korean cargo ship, Wise Honest, middle, was towed into the Pago Pago Harbor on Saturday, May 11, 2019, in Pago Pago, American Samoa. On the right are vessels docked along the harbor. The Wise Honest was seized by the U.S. because of suspicion it was used to violate international sanctions. It arrived Saturday at the capital of this American territory. (AP Photo/Fili Sagapolutele) Honolulu based US Coast Guard public affairs officer, Amanda Wyrick poses for a photo at the shoreline village of Utulei, following an interview with The Associated Press. In the background, in the ocean, is the North Korean cargo ship, Wise Honest, towed into Pago Pago Harbor, in American Samoa, on Saturday, May 11, 2019. The North Korean cargo ship was seized by the U.S. because of suspicion it was used to violate international sanctions. (AP Photo/Fili Sagapolutele) The North Korean cargo ship, Wise Honest, middle, was towed into the Port of Pago Pago in the late morning on Saturday, May 11, 2019, in Pago Pago, American Samoa. The Wise Honest ship was seized by the U.S. because of suspicion it was used to violate international sanctions. It arrived Saturday at the capital of this American territory. (AP Photo/Fili Sagapolutele) PAGO PAGO, American Samoa — A North Korean cargo ship seized by the U.S. because of suspicion it was used to violate international sanctions arrived at the capital of this American territory, where it will undergo inspections. The Wise Honest was slowly towed to the port of Pago Pago during a cloudy Saturday morning and docked at the main docking section of the port that afternoon. The trip from Indonesia took about three weeks and American Samoa, in the South Pacific, was chosen because of “its central strategic location,” U.S. Coast Guard public affairs officer Amanda Wyrick said. “We also have a good strong relationship and partnership with the American Samoan government,” Wyrick said. “With that being said, we also already have the resources that are able to ensure the security of the vessel but most importantly the Port of Pago Pago.” Indonesian authorities detained the ship in April 2018. Justice Department officials announced Thursday the U.S. had seized the ship. Asked as to how long the ship will be in the territory, Wyrick said the U.S. Department of Justice is “leading the investigation so they will be conducting that. Upon the conclusion of the investigation, the ship will be moved.” But she said the next destination is unknown. “I do know that Justice Department is going to do the investigation as fast as they can,” Wyrick added. She said she didn’t have the exact number of U.S. Coast Guard personnel or people from other federal agencies who have traveled to American Samoa for the investigation. “We have a marine and safety security team here from Honolulu,” Wyrick said. “We’re conducting random patrols, also conducting inspection of the vessel and the Port of Pago Pago, keep an eye on things such as security breaches or vandalization of the ship itself.” Officials are also making sure the port is protected, she said. “We especially in the Coast Guard, we understand the importance of the port. It’s a lifeline in getting goods to the islands,” Wyrick said. “So we want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can, to make sure that there’s absolutely no disruption to the flow of commerce coming in and out.” The U.S. government dispatched an inspection team to the ship before it docked in Pago Pago, she said. Wyrick noted there was an inspection conducted before leaving Indonesia and, because the ship has been at sea for three weeks, “it’s subject to the elements.” “The inspection of the ship before entering the harbor is to make sure the structure integrity of the boat is still intact.