Nullifying Sanctions

[Markje]

Interesting article today in the tech-blogs.

A major components supplier (PC Partner) , US-based company providing half-fabrics for GPU customer NVidia is moving to Singapore because they are tired of sanctions against BRICS countries like China, Russia.

Source article (in dutch) here:
https://tweakers.net/nieuws/228804/pc-partner-verhuist-naar-singapore-om-amerikaanse-exportrestricties-te-omzeilen.html

[Manny]

I was in a discussion on Twitter the other day where they were talking about sanctions (or tariffs - two sides of the same coin) that the US will put on Chinese goods. I suggested it is no hardship to re-route stuff via a freeport like Dubai, change the declared source country there and ship on to the US. I expect lots of this goes on already, I know I am not inventing the wheel there.

Russia regards sanctions as permanent by now, and are just as creative as other sanctioned countries at getting around them. But whether it's rerouting stuff or changing corporate domicile as the company in the article did from HK to Singapore, people will always get around them.

When I went to North Korea, I wasn't optimistic about getting a decent white wine due to sanctions. But they offered me very decent German or Sicilian ones. 

But I do recall when I wanted to send some samples of goods to NK, my parcels from both the UK and Germany were intercepted and the alphabet people got in touch to ask questions. The NKers had another routing option available of course.

[Omega1982]

Manny what questions did the alphabet people ask about the parcel you shipped to NK? 

Regarding re routing, Nk does this with their coal. 

russia does this with oil during stops in the mediterranean.  I think it was sicily. 

The same thing happened in the 1990s with the diamonds from Sierra leone which were traded as being from Liberia which has no diamonds with the attempt of making them look conflict free. 

[Manny]

Manny what questions did the alphabet people ask about the parcel you shipped to NK? 

Contents, the purpose of shipment, do I know about sanctions, who contacted who, how initial contact was made, name of contact, had I ever visited, why I have a .ru email address, how many times had I visited Russia, all that kind of stuff.

He then said don't send any more as none will get through. And that includes the one you shipped via your mate in Germany which has already been intercepted. 

He pointed me to a website where one obtains permission to ship there. Having logged in and done the reading, it seems to me that nobody gets permission.

[Jonas!]

He pointed me to a website where one obtains permission to ship there. Having logged in and done the reading, it seems to me that nobody gets permission.

Our governments have no business stopping people from sending packages to people in nations like North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela etc etc.   

Jonas! 

[Markje]

why I have a .ru email address, how many times had I visited Russia, all that kind of stuff.

I also have one, @ya.ru (yandex)... gotta love the creativity here. Love the words-pun

[Manny]

why I have a .ru email address, how many times had I visited Russia, all that kind of stuff.

I also have one, @ya.ru (yandex)... gotta love the creativity here. Love the words-pun

I suppose you can see why the line of questioning. Why is a bloke from an innocuous business in Manchester sending a parcel to NK? Why does a bloke from Manchester have a Russian email address? That the answers were unremarkable and easily explained is probably why they went away.

[Manny]

He pointed me to a website where one obtains permission to ship there. Having logged in and done the reading, it seems to me that nobody gets permission.

Our governments have no business stopping people from sending packages to people in nations like North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela etc etc.   

Jonas!

Sanctions apply to goods that can be used by the military or what they call dual-use goods (things that the military could use). IIRC, foodstuffs are exempt, and that was what was in the parcel. It was a sample of milk powder as the NKers don't trust the Chinese stuff. I put this to the alphabet man and he countered with "We saw you shipping a white powder to a sanctioned country and the sender had a Russian email address". When put like that, its not hard to see why it didn't arrive.

I asked him if shipping stuff there was prohibited, why does DHL have offices in Pyongyang and vans on the road there? He couldn't answer that.