The United States Department of Justice has announced the arrest of an illegal Chinese National on a criminal complaint alleging that he exported shipments of firearms, ammunition and other military items to North Korea. According to the DOJ, the items were concealed inside shipping containers bound from Long Beach.

Shenghua Wen, 41, a Chinese national illegally residing in Ontario, California, was arrested and made his initial appearance on December 3 in the Central District of California. According to an affidavit filed a week prior alongside the complaint, Wen obtained firearms, ammunition and export-controlled technology with the intent to ship them to North Korea, a violation of federal law and U.S. sanctions against that nation.

Among the items seized by law enforcement on August 14 from Wen’s home were a chemical threat identification device and a hand-held broadband receiver that detects eavesdropping devices. Less than a month later, on September 6, law enforcement seized approximately 50,000 rounds of 9mm ammunition, all of which he intended to send to North Korea for military use. 

In reviewing Wen’s iPhone, law enforcement discovered evidence of Wen smuggling items from the busy Long Beach harbor through Hong Kong to North Korea in December 2023. Messages retrieved from his cellphones revealed earlier discussions with his co-conspirators, including photographs of controlled items under International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), detailing the shipment of military-grade equipment to North Korea

Between January and April of this year, Wen also sent emails and text messages to a U.S.-based broker about obtaining a civilian plane engine, including text messages on Wen’s iPhone concerning price negotiation for the plane and its engine.

The Chinese national remained illegally in the United States after overstaying his student visa, which prohibits him from possessing any firearms or ammunition. Unsurprisingly, Wen lacks the required licenses from the U.S. government to export any of the weapons, ammunition or regulated devices that were seized at his home.

Wen is charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, carrying a statutory maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison.

The FBI, ATF, Homeland Security, Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security are investigating. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah E. Gerdes for the Central District of California and trial attorney Ahmed Almudallal of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.

CNN has suggested that the items being shipped are intended to help ‘prepare for a surprise attack on South Korea,’ a notion that makes me question the volume of the shipments and wonder how many additional ‘agents’ of North Korea might exist and be doing this same thing right under the noses of U.S. authorities. The situation also gives rise to thoughts about important work that regulatory and law enforcement agencies must engage in for the best interest of the country and national security rather than wasting resources trying to make criminals out of law-abiding gun owners here in America. 

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51 COMMENTS

  1. 50K rounds of 9mm? Really? For the military? Their military is nearly 1 million people active. That’s 1/20th of a bullet per person.

    North Korea has dozens of munition plants, many of which produce artillery shells. I can’t see small arms ammo being problematic. If anything I’d think they’d be trying to get in raw materials, energy or technology products.

    Do you think he underwent the ammo background check in California? Just curious.

    • Andrew Lias,

      The description does not make sense to me, either. First of all, I am quite confident that China can manufacture all the arms and munitions that North Korea wants–and then some. And China can transport those items to North Korea on the railroad which connects China and North Korea.

      Wouldn’t it be hilarious if this guy was actually trying to arm insurgents in North Korea to overthrow Kim Jong Un and our FBI inadvertently stopped it?!?!?!?

      • China is supplying both North Korea and Russia with munitions and North Korea is supplying military personnel to Russia as part of their Axis with both China and Russia. I’m more inclined to believe this is just another Obama Operation Fast and Furious part duex.

      • Supporting a insurgency: BINGO!!!
        Seems like something our Black Programs would have supported and probably funded if the guy had better connections. Chinese citizen status probably not relevant other than potential Hongkong contacts. More of a typical Chinese hustler trying to fill a few different shopping lists. make a buck. No foreign agent charge, huh?

    • Certainly good for plausible deniability or false flag attack to throw off investigators.

      Otherwise, as previously stated, not much of a business venture unless the person was subsidized for their costs. China already makes western caliber ammunition by the million. There must have been a particular reason for western sourced ammunition.

      • Southern Cross,

        Ooh, using Western sourced ammunition for a deceptive attack–now that is interesting. That is as interesting as my comment above where I mused that maybe this guy was arming North Korean insurgents to overthrow Kim Jong Un.

        • North Korea has loaned troops to Russia to use against Ukraine. Maybe this is how they plan to equip those troops as Russia was suppose to equip them but is running low on stuff to equip them with.

            • Its not like its a secret, search engine use is simple…for example > Zelensky confirms deadly clashes with North Korean troops as Putin says he’s willing to talk with Trump.

              h ttps://www.cnn.com/2024/11/07/europe/zelensky-north-korean-troops-russia-putin-intl-hnk/index.html

            • “i have yet to see any concrete proof of these north koreans”

              Ukraine is reporting Russian POWs they are picking up are complaining the North Koreans can’t tell between Russian and Ukrainian troops, and the NKs are firing on the Russian troops.

              So, Russian troops think its safer to surrender to Ukraine, than fight with the NK troops…

    • “Exports to North Korea in the United States averaged 0.52 USD Million from 1990 until 2024”.

      Surprised that the Dept of “Justice” who seldom can find their ass. How did they notice this is high % of total exports bound for to NK?

    • The American manufactured ammo, is meant for agents within South Korea, for their use in case of deception – the Country has many many North Koreans even in Government. This was to obscure assault techniques, by opposition fomenting dissent in the South.
      Raven6 1965 – 1993 and today.

  2. TTAG, ya gotta do something about this site.

    Posts made that never show up even though posted but sometimes (only sometimes) if you change your user name a little they show up but are delayed, posts that go into moderation for no reason at all (even though TTAG has not given any indication of rods to not use to avoid moderation) and never show up. I’ve got posts I made two days ago that went to moderation for nothing and have still not shown up. I’ve got posts I made over the last week into today that acted like the posted but didn’t show up and repeated attempts at posting them did the same thing.

    and maybe this one will not show up either.

    Ya’ll need to fix this.

    • Lax California gun and ammo laws. Clearly Gov. Newsom and the state legislature need to make them stricter. /s

      • I believe he is indeed funded by Soros or the like. And he’s been trained to be deceptive and to outright lie.

        He’s a chaos agent and he’s paid by the opposition to introduce chaos. He won’t go away until the money stops being paid.

  9. Achmed Alamudallal.
    National Security Counterintelligence and Stuff.
    I suppose Bob Smith didn’t want the job?
    .
    41 year old Chinese exchange student, uhh yeah on that too.
    Maybe Ching was shipping that stuff not for North Korea’s military, they’ve already got enough of that from Russia and China.
    I think it was weapons for a North Korean Revolutionary Army and he had to get caught because North Korea throwed a bitch fit and China told the US shut it down and make it look clandestine.

  11. MASSIVE BREAKING 2A NEWS: SCOTUS MAKES MAJOR DECISION IN SNOPE CASE.

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    h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwjYDLlXen8

  16. The Next CDC Director Must Restore Defensive Gun Use Statistics And Unredact Secret Conversations.

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  17. Hmm, sure glad that social-ist state of Californica ammo license along with the background check prevented a non-cal resident.

    h ttps://thegunzone.com/what-do-i-need-to-buy-ammo-in-california-in-2023/

    • seems it only hinders or stops, and infringes the constitutional rights of, the law abiding just like the pro-2A/pro-gun said.

      Fact: in the entire history of man kind there has never been a law that stopped an in progress crime from beginning.

  18. Chinese citizen (living in Los Angelas) arrested for flying drone over US military base (and taking pictures).

    h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIZpkEsnDO4

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