US banks aid N. Korea sanctions evasion: report

North Korea has laundered money through US banks in an elaborate, years-long plot to evade international sanctions, according to a new report citing a leak of confidential documents from leading financial institutions.

The documents revealed that North Korea-linked organizations allegedly transferred more than $174.8 million illegally using shell companies and assistance from Chinese companies through US banks, including JPMorgan Chase and the Bank of New York Mellon, NBC News reported.

During that period, Washington had ramped up its sanctions against the Hermit Kingdom as it pursued its nuclear and missile programs with vigor, according to the report.

Wire transfers from companies with shady ownership were made only days or hours apart in some instances, with amounts in round numbers and with no clear commercial reasons.

Anti-money-laundering expert Graham Barrow told the news outlet that those types of transactions are “red flags” that suggest efforts to hide the origins of illegal money.

Eric Lorber, a former Treasury Department official, told NBC News that “taken as a whole, you have what really, frankly, looks like a concerted attack by the North Koreans to access the US financial system over an extended period of time through multiple different avenues in ways that were fairly sophisticated.”

The documents are part of the so-called FinCEN Files uncovered in a leak of suspicious activity reports filed with the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.