Thai Jet Fighters Forced down the Plane Carrying N. Korean Arms [Breaking]

Chosun Ilbo ^ | 12/18/09 | Kwon Kyung-bok

[TigerLikesRooster]

/begin my excerpts

Thai Jet Fighters Forced down the Plane Carrying N. Korean Arms

Kwon Kyung-bok

2009.12.18 04:19

A Russian daily reports.

The IL-76 freighter plane of Georgian registry which got caught while transporting N. Korean arms did not land on Thailand for refueling, but was forced down to land by Thai fighter planes after entering Thai airspace, according to Dec. 17 report by Russian daily Kommersant.

The paper reported that, as soon as the IL-76 plane which left Pyongyang entered Thai airspace, two Thai jet fighters intercepted the plane and order it to land on Don Muang Airport in Bangkok, tipped off by foreign intelligence.

This contradicts the earlier account by Thai government that the plane landed for refueling and checking tires(?.) It also suggest that the plane was physically blocked in Thai airspace before scheduled refueling stop at Sri Lanka, while carrying N. Korean weapons in violation of UN sanction. Until recently, N. Korea's arms exports have been mainly intercepted on high sea.

/end my excerpts

[Candor7]

[TigerLikesRooster]

Hmm.. so it could be Iran-bound. Anyway, if a Chinese guy is running this operation, he will be wanted by both the Western countries and Chinese. Chinese intel frowns on embarrassing public failures. They guy has lots of explaining to do in front of his Chicom intel master.

[AmericanInTokyo]

"Zhang" is a Chinese name, not a Korean--as you would well know. Lu could be male or female. Probably a dummy company connected to illicit arms sales and shipments, smells to high heaven. Based in New Zealand. I have this Lu Zhang as 27 years old, from some other internet searching.

Also, Tiger, latest word is that NZ authorities are considering going after this SP Consulting in Auckland on TERRORISM CHARGES.

I checked the Chinese media. Just two hours ago they were reporting on this shadowy "Lu Zhang":

北韩走私军火 疑中国暗助 大纪元 - ‎2 hours ago‎ 据报导，SP Trading的办公室登记在纽国第一大城奥克兰，登记的负责人姓名为张橹（译音，Lu Zhang）。该公司所有股份均属奥克兰另一家公司“Vicam”所有。 ...

[AmericanInTokyo]

[Eric in the Ozarks]

NK got paid before the arms were shipped. I’m pretty sure there are no open accounts with Little Kim, Inc.

[AmericanInTokyo]

He sure wont stash it in Banco Delta Asia in Macao. Under his mattress wont earn much interest, either.

Decisions. Decisions.

[bert]

......Is the Republic of Georgia involved in this in some way?.....

The way I read it is that a Georgian company that owns an old but large Russian cargo plane contracted to carry freight for the North Korean Airline/air freight forwarder. The Government of Georgia was not a party to the transaction and unlike the US government does not disallow dealings with the Norkos.

[AdmSmith]

Special Branch police took the five suspects’ mobile phone SIM cards from the prison to obtain their call history, a prison services source said.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/29552/no-decision-to-destroy-seized-weapons

This investigation and running the phone numbers through the databases could not take many hours. The information gathered probably produced a very interesting chain of contacts. Time will tell.

[TigerLikesRooster]

That should be interesting. Those phones are all thrown into trash cans by now. Still, you can track down phone numbers to get useful information on the phone users.:-)