Correspondence
Email sent to three contact addresses for Heiploeg International.
The email said: "We’re contacting you in light of our latest investigation which concerns the use of forced labor in China’s seafood processing industry, specifically North Korean workers in Chinese plants.
We have investigators on the ground in China who have been engaging with labor brokers directly involved with the transfer of North Korean workers to factories in China. Through this and other investigative means, including collecting online footage from the plants and interviews with workers recently returned to North Korea from China, we’ve found large numbers of North Korean workers at a range of seafood processing plants in Liaoning province, on China’s border with North Korea.
We have information that as recently as December 2023, there were 50-70 workers at Dalian Haiqing Food Co. Ltd. in Liaoning.
The use of overseas North Korean workers was prohibited by the United Nations Security Council in 2017, with Resolution 2397 setting a deadline of December 2019 for the repatriation of all such workers to North Korea. Under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), passed in 2017, the United States prohibits the import of any goods produced by North Korean nationals unless clear and convincing evidence is provided that indicates the materials were not made with forced labor.
According to trade records seen by The Outlaw Ocean Project, Heiploeg International was the consignee for shipments of seafood, including cod and Alaska pollock, from Dalian Haiqing in 2020 and 2022.
While we understand that you may not be aware of the above issues, we want to ask if Heiploeg has any comment to make in response to the information in this email?"