Purchases Linked N. Korean to Syria
Pyongyang Company Funneled Reactor Parts to Damascus, Intelligence Officials Say
By Robin Wright and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, May 11, 2008; A18

When North Korean businessman Ho Jin Yun first caught the attention of German customs police in 2002, he was on a continental buying spree with a shopping list that seemed as random as it was long.

[snip]

According to U.S. officials, European intelligence officials and diplomats, Yun’s firm — Namchongang Trading, known as NCG — provided the critical link between Pyongyang and Damascus, acquiring key materials from vendors in China and probably from Europe, and secretly transferring them to a desert construction site near the Syrian town of Al Kibar.

It was the company’s suspicious buying habits — and the branch office it opened in Damascus — that inadvertently contributed to the alleged reactor’s discovery and later destruction in a Sept. 6 Israeli bombing raid, U.S. officials say.

[snip]

Alerted to NCG’s suspect purchases in Europe, Western spy agencies were able to track the movement of NCG employees and purchases to Syria in 2003, where the outlines of the reactor scheme eventually became apparent.