South Korean authorities on Thursday announced that they have been conducting an investigation into a local company’s involvement in producing cigarette filters for North Korean tobacco companies, in a statement by the South’s Korean Coast Guard’s central regional headquarters.

Authorities said a joint investigation by the Incheon Main Customs and the Korea Coast Guard had revealed that an unnamed South Korean corporation, referred to as “company A”, had shipped the cigarette filters to North Korea via China.

In a statement entitled “Exposure of the company taking out the raw materials which are the means of earning hard foreign currency,” it