CHEATS: From Russia with fuel – North Korean ships may be undermining sanctions.
At least eight North Korean ships that left Russia with a cargo of fuel this year headed for their homeland despite declaring other destinations, a ploy that U.S. officials say is often used to undermine sanctions.
Reuters has no evidence of wrongdoing by the vessels, whose movements were recorded in Reuters ship-tracking data. Changing a ship’s destination once underway is not forbidden and it is unclear whether any of the ships unloaded fuel in North Korea.
But U.S. officials say that changing destination mid-voyage is a hallmark of North Korean state tactics to circumvent the international trade sanctions imposed over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.
Changing course and the complex chain of different firms — many offshore — involved in shipments can complicate efforts to check how much fuel is supplied to North Korea and monitor compliance with a cap on fuel imports under U.N. sanctions.
It may be time to bring up at the UNSC a Cuban Missile Crisis-style quarantine of cargo ships headed for North Korean ports — at least as a public test of Russian and Chinese intentions.