North Korean coal and pig iron worth USD$5.86 million was brought into the South in 2017, the Korea Customs Service (KCS) said on Friday, amid an increasingly deepening domestic scandal regarding the import of sanctioned DPRK-made commodities by South Korean companies last year.

Between April and October last year, the KCS reported in a statement carried by Yonhap, three South Korean groups imported KRW6.6 billion’s worth of the sanctioned goods, representing a potentially major violation of United Nations resolutions.

The companies reportedly transferred the commodities at a Russian port, deliberately mislabeling their country of origin in order to bring them into