Asahi and Yomiuri wrote that the South Korean government announced on Wednesday that it had detected 156 cases of the illegal export of strategic materials that can be used for manufacturing weapons of mass destruction in the period from 2015 to March 2019. Among those materials was hydrogen fluoride, which was illicitly exported to the UAE, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Other strategic materials were shipped to Syria and Iran.

Asahi wrote that according to the Center for Information on Security Trade Control, an extra-government organization connected to the Ministry of Trade, there have been only nine cases of the administrative punishment of Japanese private companies for illegal exports since 2015 and six of the nine cases involved shipments to the DPRK.