This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.

The United States announced Tuesday sanctions against two Chinese nationals and one entity over money laundering to support North Korea, a day after it blacklisted 19 individuals and entities for ties to the North’s missile program and deployment of troops to Russia.

The sanctions are part of a U.S. effort to disrupt North Korean money laundering, which is suspected of financing missile programs and other “weapons of mass destruction.”

Lu Huaying and Zhang Jian, working out of the United Arab Emirates, or UAE, and utilizing a front company, laundered millions of dollars in funds from North Korea, said the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC.

The UAE-based front firm Green Alpine Trading enabled the money-laundering network, and the funds were eventually sent back to the North, according to OFAC.

The department added the network was orchestrated by already sanctioned North Korean Sim Hyon Sop, a China-based banking representative of Korea Kwangson Banking Corp.

OFAC said North Korea is using agents and proxies to tap into the global financial ecosystem, leveraging fraud, including digital asset theft.

“As the DPRK continues to use complex criminal schemes to fund its WMD and ballistic missile programs – including through the exploitation of digital assets – Treasury remains focused on disrupting the networks that facilitate this flow of funds to the regime,” said Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith.

DPRK is short for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. WMD are weapons of mass destruction.

“The United States, along with the UAE and our other partners, will continue to target the financial networks that enable the Kim regime’s destabilizing activities.”

Sanctions block all property and interests in the U.S. or controlled by U.S. people. Financial institutions or others dealing with sanctioned individuals or entities may face enforcement actions.

OFAC’s announcement came a day after the U.S. blacklisted 19 individuals and entities for ties to North Korea’s missile program and deployment of troops to Russia.

North Korea has long sought missiles capable of reaching the U.S. and frequently tests shorter-range ones near Japan and South Korea.

The U.S. and South Korea estimate more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers have been sent to Russia to help its war against Ukraine, although neither Russian President Vladimir Putin nor North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have confirmed that.

Separately, South Korea announced on Tuesday that it will impose sanctions on three top North Korean military officers and one missile developer believed to have been deployed to Russia to support its war on Ukraine. The sanctions are set to take effect on Thursday.

On the same day, 10 countries, including the U.S., South Korea, Australia, Britain, France and Japan, as well as the European Union, issued a

statement condemning Pyongyang and Moscow’s military ties “in the strongest possible terms.”