North Korea's hidden fleet sneaks oil past UN sanctions
North Korean oil tankers turn off their tracking and sail under false flags to smuggle oil and evade UN sanctions.
North Korea's oil tankers turn off their tracking systems. They vanish from global tracking for days, then reappear far away to deliver oil illegally.
Professor Justin Hastings of the University of Sydney explains why this works. The oceans are huge and hard to patrol.
International law also protects ships on the open sea from being stopped without clear reason. Russia and Iran now copy this same tactic to dodge their own sanctions.
- University of Sydney
- Country researching this
- Justin Hastings
- Researcher
- April 2023
- Example date
- 10 days
- Tracking disabled
Why it mattersIt shows how countries can dodge international sanctions with tactics that are hard to stop. Russia and Iran are now copying the same methods.
AustraliaAs a US ally in the Indo-Pacific, Australia sees these evasion techniques challenge the sanctions regimes it supports against North Korea and other adversaries.
✓ Claims checked against the source and corrected before publish. checked 51 d ago
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