KUALA LUMPUR: It is in Kuala Lumpur’s “Little India” neighborhood, behind an unmarked door on the second floor of a rundown building, where a military equipment company called Glocom says it has its office.
Glocom is a front company run by North Korean intelligence agents that sells battlefield radio equipment in violation of United Nations sanctions, according to a United Nations report submitted to the Security Council seen by Reuters.
Reuters found that Glocom advertises over 30 radio systems for “military and paramilitary” organizations on its Malaysian website, glocom.com.my.
Glocom’s Malaysian website, which was taken down late last year, listed the Little India address in its contacts section. No one answers the door there and the mailbox outside is stuffed with unopened letters. In fact, no company by that name exists in Malaysia. But two Malaysian companies controlled by North Korean shareholders and directors registered Glocom’s website in 2009, according to website and company registration documents.
And it does have a business, the unreleased UN report says. Last July, an air shipment of North Korean military communications equipment, sent from China and bound for Eritrea, was intercepted in an unnamed country. The seized equipment included 45 boxes of battlefield radios and accessories labelled “Glocom,” short for Global Communications Co.
Glocom is controlled by the Reconnaissance General Bureau, the North Korean intelligence agency tasked with overseas operations and weapons procurement, the report says, citing undisclosed information it obtained.
A spokesman for North Korea’s mission at the UN told Reuters he had no information about Glocom.
UN resolution 1874, adopted in 2009, expanded the arms embargo against North Korea to include military equipment and all “related materiel.”
But implementation of the sanctions “remains insufficient and highly inconsistent” among member countries, the UN report says, and North Korea is using “evasion techniques that are increasing in scale, scope and sophistication.”
Malaysia is one of the few countries in the world which had strong ties with North Korea. Their citizens can travel to each other’s countries without visas. But those ties have begun to sour after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half-brother was murdered at Kuala Lumpur’s international airport on Feb 13.
Pan systems
According to the “WHOIS” database, which discloses website ownership, Glocom.com.my was registered in 2009 by an entity called International Global System using the “Little India” address. A similarly named company, International Golden Services is listed as the contact point on Glocom’s website.
Glocom registered a new website, glocom-corp.com, in mid-December, this one showing no Malaysian contacts. Its most recent post is dated January, 2017 and advertises new products, including a remote control system for a precision-guided missile.
Glocom is operated by the Pyongyang branch of a Singapore-based company called Pan Systems, the UN report says, citing an invoice and other information it obtained.
Louis Low, managing director of Pan Systems in Singapore said his company used to have an office in Pyongyang from 1996 but officially ended relations with North Korea in 2010 and was no longer in control of any business there.
“They use (the) Pan Systems (name) and say it’s a foreign company, but they operate everything by themselves,” Low told Reuters referring to the North Koreans at the Pyongyang office.
Pan Systems Pyongyang utilized bank accounts, front companies and agents mostly based in China and Malaysia to buy components and sell completed radio systems, the UN report says. Pan Systems Pyongyang could not be reached for comment.
One of the directors of Pan Systems Pyongyang is Ryang Su Nyo. According to a source with direct knowledge of her background, Ryang reports to “Liaison Office 519”, a department in the Reconnaissance General Bureau. Ryang is also listed as a shareholder of International Global System, the company that registered Glocom’s website.
Reuters has not been able to contact Ryang.
Smuggling cash
Ryang frequently traveled to Singapore and Malaysia to meet with Pan Systems representatives, the UN report says.
On one such trip in February 2014, she and two other North Koreans were detained in Malaysia for attempting to smuggle $450,000 through customs at Kuala Lumpur’s budget airport terminal, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters.
The North Korean trio told Malaysian authorities they all worked for Pan Systems and the cash belonged to the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, according to the two sources.
The Malaysian Attorney General decided not to press charges because of insufficient evidence. A week later, the trio was allowed to travel, and the North Korean embassy claimed the cash, the sources said. All three had passports assigned to government officials, the sources said.
Malaysia’s Customs Department and the Attorney General’s office did not respond to requests for comment over the weekend.
The Pan Systems representative in Kuala Lumpur is a North Korean by the name of Kim Chang Hyok, the UN report says.
Kim, who also goes by James Kim, was a founding director of International Golden Services, the company listed in the contacts section of the Glocom website. Kim is director and shareholder of four other companies in Malaysia operating in the fields of IT and trade, according to the Malaysian company registry.
He did not respond to requests for comment by mail or e-mail.
The United Nations panel, which prepared the draft report, asked the Malaysian government if it would expel Kim and freeze the assets of International Golden Services and International Global System to comply with UN sanctions. The UN did not say when it made the request.
“The panel has yet to receive an answer,” the report said.
Reuters has not received a response from the Malaysian government to repeated requests for comment about Glocom.
Political connection
One of Glocom’s early partners in Malaysia was Mustapha Ya’akub, a prominent member of Malaysia’s ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO). Since 2014, he has been listed as a director of International Golden Services.
As secretary of the UMNO youth wing’s international affairs bureau, Mustapha fostered political connections in the 1990s with countries, such as Iran, Libya and North Korea. Glocom’s Little India address once housed a company owned by UMNO Youth.
Mustapha, 67, said he had been a Glocom business partner “many years back” and said it has been continuously controlled by several North Koreans, including Kim Chang Hyok, whom he said he knew. He did not divulge his role in the company, and denied any knowledge of Glocom’s current business.
“We thought at the time it might be a good idea to go into business together,” Mustapha told Reuters about his first meeting with his North Korean business contacts. He did not say who those contacts were or what they discussed. He denied any knowledge of Glocom’s current business.
Glocom advertises and exhibits its wares without disclosing its North Korean connections.
“Anywhere, Anytime in Battlefield,” reads the slogan on one of several 2017 Glocom catalogues obtained by Reuters.
An advertisement in the September 2012 edition of the Asian Military Review said Glocom develops radios and equipment for “military and paramilitary organizations.”
A spokesman for the magazine confirmed the ad had been bought by Glocom, but said the magazine was unaware of its alleged links to North Korea.
Glocom has exhibited at least three times since 2006 at Malaysia’s biennial arms show, Defense Services Asia (DSA), according to Glocom’s website.
At DSA 2016, Glocom paid 2,000 ringgit ($450) to share a table in the booth of Malaysia’s Integrated Securities Corporation, its director Hassan Masri told Reuters by e-mail.
Hassan said he had nothing to do with Glocom’s equipment and was unaware of its alleged links to North Korea.
Aside from the North Koreans behind Glocom, clues on its website also point to its North Korean origins.
For instance, one undated photo shows a factory worker testing a Glocom radio system. A plaque nearby shows the machine he is using has won a uniquely North Korean award: The Model Machine No. 26 Prize,” named in honor of late leader Kim Jong Il, who is said to have efficiently operated “Lathe No. 26” at the Pyongyang Textile Factory when he was a student.
(Reporting by James Pearson and Rozanna Latiff. Additional reporting by Nicole Nee in Singapore, Michelle Price in Hong Kong and Ned Parker in New York.)
N.Korea spy agency runs arms operation out of Malaysia, UN says
N.Korea spy agency runs arms operation out of Malaysia, UN says
Former Kosovo rebel commander ordered to pay victims
Although the “responsibility to pay the compensation lies exclusively with Mr.Shala“” the judge said, “he does not appear to have the means to comply with the order“
THE HAGUE: A special international court on Friday ordered a former Kosovo rebel commander to pay $220,000 in damages to victims of abuses suffered in 1999 during the Serbian province’s struggle for independence.
Pjeter Shala, 61, also known as “Commander Wolf,” was sentenced to 18 years behind bars in July for war crimes committed during the tiny country’s 1998-99 independence conflict, when separatist KLA rebels fought forces loyal to then Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.
The judges “set the total reparation award for which Mr.Shala is liable at 208,000 euros” ($220,000),” Judge Mappie Veldt-Foglia told the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague.
“Mr Shala is ordered to pay (damages) as compensation for the harm inflicted” on eight victims, she said.
The total amount comprised individual payments to the eight victims ranging from 8,000 to 100,000 euros, as well as a collective sum of 50,000 euros, the judge said.
Although the “responsibility to pay the compensation lies exclusively with Mr.Shala“” the judge said, “he does not appear to have the means to comply with the order.”
Kosovo’s current Crime Victim Compensation Program “could be one way to execute the Reparation Order,” Veldt-Foglia suggested.
However, the maximum sums per victim awarded by the program would be lower than those awarded by the court, she said.
Shala faced charges of murder, torture, arbitrary detention and cruel treatment of at least 18 civilian detainees accused of working as spies or collaborating with opposing Serb forces in mid-1999.
The judges acquitted him of cruel treatment and he was sentenced on the other three counts.
The judges said Shala was part of a group of KLA soldiers who severely mistreated detainees at a metal factory serving as a KLA headquarters in Kukes, northeastern Albania, at the time.
Shala was tried before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, a court located in The Hague to prosecute mainly former KLA fighters for war crimes.
They included former KLA political commander Hashim Thaci, who dominated Kosovo’s politics after it declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and rose to become president of the tiny country.
Thaci resigned in 2020 to face war crimes and crimes against humanity charges, and has pleaded not guilty.
Germany indicts Turkish national for spying on alleged Gulen activists
- Gulen built a powerful Islamic movement in Turkiye and beyond
BERLIN: German federal prosecutors on Friday said they had indicted a Turkish national for alleged spying on individuals that he associated with cleric Fethullah Gulen.
The suspect, who is not in jail and was only identified as Mehmet K., in line with German privacy laws, contacted Turkiye’s police and intelligence service via anonymous letters, prosecutors added.
Gulen built a powerful Islamic movement in Turkiye and beyond, but spent his later years in the US mired in accusations of orchestrating an attempted coup against Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan.
Gulen died last month.
At least 15 dead, 113 missing, in Uganda landslides
- Landslides late on Wednesday hit the village of Masugu in the eastern Bulambuli district, about five hours from the capital, Kampala
- Images on local media showed huge swathes of fallen earth covering the land
KAMPALA: Landslides that hit several villages in eastern Uganda killed 15 people and left more than 100 unaccounted for, police said Thursday.
The East African country has been deluged by heavy rains in past days, with the government issuing a national disaster alert after reports of flooding and landslides.
Landslides late on Wednesday hit the village of Masugu in the eastern Bulambuli district, about five hours from the capital, Kampala.
Images on local media showed huge swathes of fallen earth covering the land.
“A total of 15 bodies have been retrieved,” the Ugandan police said in a statement posted on X, adding that another 15 people had been taken to hospital.
“Unfortunately, 113 people are still missing, but efforts are underway to locate them,” it said.
The statement said five villages — Masugu, Namachele, Natola, Namagugu, and Tagalu — had been impacted.
Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja told NBS television that they “believe” all the missing were presumed dead.
“We are trying to exhume the bodies of those missing people,” she said, adding that at least 19 people had been injured, two of them in critical condition.
District commissioner Faheera Mpalanyi said early Thursday that six bodies, including a baby, had been recovered so far from Masugu village.
“Given the devastation and the size of the area affected and from what the affected families are telling us, several people are missing and probably buried in the debris,” she said.
Ugandan Red Cross spokesperson Irene Nakasiita said on X that 15 bodies had been recovered, including seven children.
Some 45 homes had been “completely buried,” she added.
Police said rescue operations were being hindered by impassable roads, blocking ambulances and rescue vehicles from reaching the scene.
A Uganda Red Cross video showed a huddle of people desperately digging through earth as women wailed in the background.
Some 500 soldiers had been deployed to help with the rescue but only 120 had managed to reach the villages, Nabbanja said.
The scale of the multiple landslides was unclear.
Videos and photographs shared on social media purported to show people digging for survivors in Kimono village, also located in the Bulambuli district.
The Ugandan prime minister’s office issued an alert, writing on X: “Heavy rains on Wednesday in parts of Uganda have led to disaster situations in many areas.”
The rains caused flooding in the northwest after a tributary of the Nile River burst its banks.
Emergency teams were deployed to rescue stranded motorists.
A major road connecting the country with South Sudan was obstructed late on Wednesday, with emergency boat crews deployed near the town of Pakwach.
“Unfortunately, one of the boats capsized, resulting in the death of one engineer,” Uganda’s defense forces said on X.
The deadliest landslide in Africa ravaged Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown in August 2017, when 1,141 people perished.
Mudslides in the Mount Elgon region of eastern Uganda killed more than 350 people in February 2010.
Earlier this year, more than 30 people died in Kampala after a massive rubbish landslide.
Dozens feared dead in Nigeria boat accident
- Rescue operations were currently underway, but the exact number of fatalities was unknown
ABUJA: Dozens of people were feared dead after a boat capsized on the Niger River in central Nigeria, a waterways agency spokesperson said on Friday.
National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) spokesperson Makama Suleiman said the boat was carrying mostly traders from Missa community in the central Kogi state heading to a weekly market in the neighboring Niger state.
Suleiman said that rescue operations were currently underway, but the exact number of fatalities was unknown.
None of the passengers were wearing life jackets, which significantly increased the risk of fatalities, he said.
UK spy chief says Russia behind ‘staggeringly reckless’ sabotage in Europe
- Richard Moore, head of MI6, said: “We have recently uncovered a staggeringly reckless campaign of Russian sabotage in Europe”
- “If Putin succeeds China would weigh the implications, North Korea would be emboldened and Iran would become still more dangerous“
PARIS: Britain’s foreign spy chief accused Russia on Friday of waging a “staggeringly reckless campaign” of sabotage in Europe while also stepping up its nuclear sabre-rattling to scare other countries off from backing Ukraine.
Richard Moore, head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service known as MI6, said that any softening in support for Ukraine against Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion would embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies.
In what appeared a message to incoming US President Donald Trump’s administration and some European allies that have questioned continued support for Ukraine in the grinding war, Moore argued that Europe and its transatlantic partners must hold firm in the face of what he said was growing aggression.
“We have recently uncovered a staggeringly reckless campaign of Russian sabotage in Europe, even as Putin and his acolytes resort to nuclear sabre-rattling to sow fear about the consequences of aiding Ukraine,” he said in a speech in Paris.
“The cost of supporting Ukraine is well known but the cost of not doing so would be infinitely higher. If Putin succeeds China would weigh the implications, North Korea would be emboldened and Iran would become still more dangerous.”
In September, Moore said Russia’s intelligence services had gone “a bit feral” in the latest warning by NATO and other Western spy chiefs about what they call hostile Russian actions, ranging from repeated cyberattacks to Moscow-linked arson.
Moscow has denied responsibility for all such incidents. The Russian embassy in London did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Moore’s remarks.
Last month the UK’s domestic spy chief said Russia’s GRU military intelligence service was seeking to cause “mayhem.” Sources familiar with US intelligence have told Reuters Moscow is likely to step up its campaign against European targets to increase pressure on the West over its support for Kyiv.
LOOKING FORWARD TO TRUMP
Much of Moore’s speech was focused on the importance of Western solidarity, saying the collective strength of Britain’s allies would outmatch Putin who, he said, was becoming increasingly in hock to China, North Korea and Iran.
Trump, who has vowed to quickly end the war in Ukraine, without saying how, and other Republicans in the US have expressed reservations about Washington’s strong strategic support and heavy weapons supplies for Kyiv.
“If Putin is allowed to succeed in reducing Ukraine to a vassal state he will not stop there. Our security — British, French, European and transatlantic — will be jeopardized,” Moore said.
In general terms, Moore said the world was in its most dangerous state in his 37 years working in the intelligence world, with Daesh on the rise again, Iran’s nuclear ambitions a continued threat, and the radicalising impact of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel not yet fully known.
Nicolas Lerner, head of France’s foreign spy agency DGSE, said French and UK intelligence were working closely together “to face what is undoubtedly one of the threats — if not the threat — in my opinion, the possible atomic proliferation in Iran.” Iran has repeatedly denied seeking nuclear weapons.
