Before Josef Schwartz spends an eternity in Hell, would Austria please send him back to prison?

Reading through the new Panel of Experts report, I saw a finding, at Paragraph 108, relating to two 2011 “[s]hipments of spare parts and equipment for submarines and military boats brokered by Green Pine” — a North Korean trading company designated by the U.N. over proliferation concerns — “from Austria to Angola and Viet Nam.” Reading on, I saw that “[t]he consignments were shipped from Vienna by an Austrian national, Josef Schwartz, through his company, Schwartz Motorbootservice.” Remember him? Sure you do. 

Italy blocked the multimillion-dollar sale of two luxury yachts that Italian police say were destined for North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in violation of international sanctions.

The 105-foot and 95-foot Italian-made seafaring vessels were ordered from the Azimut-Benetti boatyard, a maker of luxury yachts near Turin, by an Austrian company. A Chinese company stepped in later to complete the purchase, Italy’s Economic Development Ministry said.

Italian financial police said the Chinese company paid a Hong Kong business to take delivery of the vessels, valued at nearly €13 million ($18.5 million).

An investigation determined that the yachts ultimately were bound for the reclusive communist nation in violation of international sanctions barring sale of luxury goods to North Korea, the ministry said.

Col. Antonio Leone, the financial-police commander in Lucca, said “it is an irrefutable fact” that Mr. Kim was the intended final recipient, according to Reuters. “There has been a thorough investigation, partly in Austria, backed up by confessions and investigative breakthroughs,” he said. [Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2009]

Europeans and American treat it like a joke when the quirky rulers of starving subjects buy yachts and limousines. But it’s no joke. It’s a crime, against humanity, and against the laws of the European Union. That the Italians stopped the sale is more than I can say for the British authorities, who let another yacht sale to the North Koreans slip through a few years ago. 

And then there are the Austrians, who let Josef Schwartz run free, despite his long history of repeatedly violating EU sanctions regulations. Austrian authorities prosecuted Schwartz for the yacht sale and sentenced him to nine months in prison. Evidently, that wasn’t enough to get the point across, because Schwartz has now been called out by name in no less than three Panel of Experts reports. This is from the 2012 Panel of Experts report:

84. The Panel obtained copies of contracts for the purchase of two yachts concluded by the Austrian firm Schwartz Motorbootservice und Handel GmbH. It also obtained associated financial records and copies of contracts transferring rights and responsibility for making payments from the Austrian firm to a Chinese firm, Complant International Transportation (Dalian) Company Ltd. Member States provided information that Josef Schwartz, during questioning by Austrian police, admitted to being aware of the triangulation that Complant was planning to carry forward, with the intent of selling the ships, subsequently, to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. He was convicted by an Austrian court of violating applicable law of the European Union on restrictive measures against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea both for his attempt to export yachts and in a related case of exporting luxury automobiles to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, fined, and sentenced to a nine-month prison term (on parole for a period of three years).

85. The Austrian court judgement records Schwartz’s purchase of eight S-class Mercedes automobiles for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The Chinese firm Complant International is identified as a falsely declared end user for some of these vehicles. Austrian authorities learned that Schwartz purchased the vehicles at the order of Kwon Yong Rok, a citizen of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and formerly long-term resident of Austria (he has since left). Numerous media reports and several books have linked Kwon Yong Rok to Office 39 of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. He was associated with Golden Star Bank in Vienna (a subsidiary of Korea Daesong Bank, itself subordinated to Office 39)57 before it was shuttered by regulators.

Schwartz gets another dishonorable mention in the 2014 report:

177. The Panel knows that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has used indirect payments in attempts to acquire prohibited items. It included in its 2012 final report a 2009 attempt to buy two luxury yachts in Italy.107 Financial techniques used to evade paragraph 8 (a) (iii) of resolution 1718 (2006) included pooling of funds in the Austrian bank account of Josef Schwartz, the owner of Schwartz Motorboot service, who signed the purchase contract. Funds were wired in various amounts from a number of companies in different locales as well as from banks in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea itself.108 While under investigation, Schwartz reassigned the contract to a second company, Complant International Transportation (Dalian) Co., Ltd, which continued the subterfuge to conceal the actual destination. It used yet another company to wire at least a portion of more than €5 million paid to the shipbuilder, according to Italian authorities.

And yet, Schwartz is free again, enriching himself on money stolen from starving children. A guy with ethics like these probably doesn’t believe there will be retribution in Hell, but can’t someone at least lock up this repeat offender against the laws of man?