HRNK exposes N. Korea’s sale of crew services to Taiwanese ships, via Uruguay (Update: A violation of EO 13722?)

The HRNK insider blog carries a fascinating story that begins with “a recent speaking tour in South America.” Recently, a North Korean sailor arrived at the airport in Montevideo, Uruguay, from Beijing. The sailor and his minder must have been in quite a hurry to get to the port. They forgot his suitcase, which the airport authorities eventually declared unclaimed. The suitcase contained evidence that North Korea is renting crew services to third-country vessels via a Uruguayan broker. (HRNK claims it “has also received information on a similar operation being conducted in Peru, but has so far been unable to verify such reports.”) The scheme works like this:

Sources in the country have confirmed that a Uruguayan company is cooperating with the North Korean authorities to dispatch North Korean sailors and fishermen to work on foreign ships. Based on luggage tag information, prior to landing in Montevideo, the sailors transit through Beijing and Paris. Although HRNK hasn’t yet been able to independently verify this information, the company has been identified as “Grupo Christophersen Organizacion Maritima,” headquartered in Montevideo. In order to avoid scrutiny by locals and to deny the sailors contact with the outside world, the North Koreans are picked up as soon as they land in Montevideo. They are then taken to a foreign fishing vessel by taxi. Practically, unless they are accompanied by watchful North Korean minders, the sailors can’t set foot on Uruguayan soil. According to local sources, it is primarily Taiwanese ships that make port in Uruguay and take on groups of ten to twenty North Korean sailors. Two of these Taiwanese fishing ships identified by local sources are reportedly “Shengpa” and “Samdera Pacific.” [HRNK Insider]

Greg Scarlatoiu’s entire post is a must-read, if only for the photographs of the propaganda poems the heavily indoctrinated sailor wrote (or rewrote) by hand. The extensive maternal references strongly support Brian Myers’s analysis of North Korean propaganda.

If confirmed, such a scheme falls into a gray area in U.N. sanctions against North Korea. In March, the U.N. Security Council approved Resolution 2270. Although the resolution does not ban the provision of crew services by North Korea to other U.N. member states, it does call on (but does not explicitly require) member states “to de?register any vessel that is owned, operated or crewed by the DPRK.” HRNK’s post does not name the North Korean entity Grupo Christophersen contracted with, but if it’s designated by the U.N., the transaction would be a violation. For now, this warrants further investigation by the U.N. Panel of Experts, and some polite visits by State Department officials to the Uruguayan Embassy and TECRO.

If the Security Council is looking to impose an additional cost on Pyongyang for its latest missile tests, perhaps it can also ban the provision of crew services by North Korea to U.N. member states. If the Panel of Experts can’t figure out how His Porcine Majesty ultimately spends Grupo Christopherson’s money, it could add that partner to its blacklist. The Security Council is long overdue to ban labor-export arrangements that violate internationally accepted labor standards.

But the real lesson we learned today? Never forget your suitcase at the airport.

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Update: What didn’t occur to me until after I posted this is that if the transactions are denominated in dollars, they’re subject to blocking under this provision of Executive Order 13722, which the President signed in March to implement the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act.

Sec. 2. (a) All property and interests in property that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person of the following persons are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State:

[….]

(iv) to have engaged in, facilitated, or been responsible for the exportation of workers from North Korea, including exportation to generate revenue for the Government of North Korea or the Workers’ Party of Korea;

So, who knows the name of the North Korean company involved? In what currency does it accept payments, as if I have to ask?