We tracked a ship in North Korea’s shadow fleet. This is how it stays in the dark
It’s the middle of the night in April 2023 in the East China Sea.
A North Korean-linked oil tanker, sailing under different country’s flag, suddenly goes dark.
It stops transmitting its location using the Automatic Identification System (AIS) machine that all larger commercial ships have on board. To the casual observer looking at a computer screen, it ceases to exist.
This is just one of hundreds of ships in the North Korean shadow fleet that keeps the pariah state’s economy afloat in the face of international sanctions.
This is the story of one ship in North Korea’s fleet, the New Konk.
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