A cargo ship operated by a South Korean citizen appeared once more with a North Korean flag. Over the past three years, only nine confirmed vessels have been illegally purchased by North Korea, of which seven were owned by South Korea. Reporter Ham Ji-ha reports.
The new North Korean flag-bearing vessel is the ‘An Hai 6’, which until recently was discovered in South Korean ports.
As a result of analyzing ‘MarineTraffic’, which shows real-time location information of ships by VOA, the UN’s ship registration system, and data from the Asia-Pacific Port Authority Control Committee (Tokyo MOU), An Hai 6’s registration with the International Maritime Organization (IMO) The number was confirmed to be the same as the ‘Rakwon 1’ currently carrying the North Korean flag.
The ‘Rakwon 1’ is a ship carrying a North Korean flag, and since last month, it has been caught on marine traffic, etc.
Unlike the ship’s shipping or name, the IMO registration number cannot be changed.
This means that the vessel that was once the An Hai 6 is now operating as the North Korean shipment of the Rock Won 1.
Since 2005, the first year of construction, An Hai 6 has been operating as a ‘Bai Xiang 66’ ship loaded in China.
However, in April of this year, ‘Pearl Marine Shipping’ of the Marshall Islands became the new owner and became the Hai 6 with the flag of Niue, an island nation in the South Pacific.
In general, since shipping companies have a domicile in the Marshall Islands and use the ‘convenience’ method of registering ships in island countries such as Niue, the actual ship owner and the nationality of the company are not directly related to the Marshall Islands or Niue. I see it.
However, as a result of VOA examining data from the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, it was found that An Hai 6 entered Busan Port, South Korea on May 16 and departed on the 18th, two days later.
According to this, the owner of this ship was ‘JPL Co., Ltd.’ and the nationality of the ship operator was ‘Korea’.
It is interesting to note that before the An Hai 6 was reborn as a North Korean ship, the destination was Busan, South Korea, but the fact that the operator at the time was a Korean is also noteworthy.
VOA tried to make several phone calls with ‘JPL’ in Busan, Korea on the 4th to ask for more details, but was not connected.
To put it all together, An Hai 6, operated by a South Korean citizen, became the North Korean ship Rockwon 1 at some point between May 18, the last time it left South Korea, and September, when it was discovered in North Korea.
The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2321 on North Korea in 2016 to prevent UN member states from selling ships to North Korea. In addition, the United States and South Korea are implementing their own sanctions once morest North Korea that completely ban trade with North Korea.
In the process of the An Hai 6 being reborn as the North Korean ship, the Rock One 1, the UN Security Council resolution and the United States’ independent sanctions regulations were not followed.
It is known that the UN Security Council North Korea Sanctions Committee Expert Panel is currently investigating the matter. In addition, it is said that the interim report of the expert panel to be released soon contains information related to An Hai No. 6.
In recent years, North Korea has continued to mobilize disguised companies to purchase used ships.
Previously, VOA reported that the ‘Anni’, which arrived in Nampo with the flag of Niue in August, has now become the ‘Gyeongseong 3’ shipped to North Korea.
In addition, it was confirmed that several used South Korean-owned vessels were transferred to North Korea intensively in 2019 and 2020.
In this way, between 2019 and recent years, North Korea has purchased at least nine used ships, including seven South Korean ships.
Given that the prices of small and medium-sized cargo ships and tankers purchased by North Korea range from several million dollars to tens of millions of dollars, it is questionable how North Korea raised these funds.
The shipping industry analyzed that North Korea is trying to replace its aging vessels with used vessels that are less obsolete.
Lee Dong-geun, CEO of Woochang Shipping, a shipping expert, told VOA in April, “As a ship becomes old, there is no choice but to come to a limit that cannot be rewritten.
[녹취: 이동근 대표] “The size of the vessel that North Korea needs is usually 10,000 tons or less, and this size is required, so when buying and selling this size (ship), the authorities and the seller of the vessel need to carefully look at the source of funds, etc. In addition, there is a need for legal sanctions once morest companies with such a history.”
Most of the ships that North Korea is currently operating overseas were built in the 1980s, with the exception of some ships built in the 2000s.
In fact, the North Korean ships ‘Eunpa 1’, ‘Songjin 3’, and ‘Durubong 2’, which had undergone safety inspections at overseas ports until just a few years ago, were built in 1973 and have been operating for nearly 50 years.
This is Jiha Ham from VOA News.
