US Spy Satellites Catch Chinese Ships Illegally Selling Oil To North Korea

Tyler Durden's picture

According to South Korea's Chosun Ilbo, U.S. recon satellites have photographed around 30 illegal transactions involving Chinese vessels selling oil to North Korea on the West Sea in October. The images allegedly showed large Chinese and North Korean ships transacting in oil in a part of the West Sea closer to China than South Korea. The satellite pictures even showed the names of the ships.

A government source said, “We need to focus on the fact that the illicit trade started after a UN Security Council resolution in September drastically capped North Korea’s imports of refined petroleum products.”  Meanwhile, on paper, China’s trade with North has recently collapsed after U.S. President Donald Trump unleashed a barrage of sanctions in September targeting North Korea’s imports of refined petroleum products.

Back in November, the US. Treasury Department sanctioned an additional six North Korean shipping and trading companies and 20 of their ships after the satellite pictures surfaced. In the above picture, the North Korean ship named Ryesonggang 1, was easily identified and connected to the illegal sale of oil from China.

According to Chosun Media, "the department noted that the two ships appeared to be illegally trading in oil from ship to ship to bypass sanctions."

Ship-to-ship trade with North Korea on the high seas is forbidden in UNSC Resolution 2375 adopted in September, but such violations are nearly impossible to detect unless China aggressively cracks down on smuggling.   

Last month, the Communist Party spokespeople slammed new US sanctions targeting Chinese traders doing business with North Koreans, calling them “wrong”. At this point, it’s still unknown if the Chinese government is turning a blind eye to the illegal open sea transactions with North Korea, but as of today it seems as a blatant snub to the Trump administration.

Meanwhile, as President Trump and the US celebrate last week’s latest round of new sanctions for North Korea at the UN, the likelihood of illegal smuggling routes between the two countries will surely expand. The question then is with all diplomatic avenues exhausted and China violating a UNSC resolution, what happens next?

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Stan522's picture

You mean to tell me the Chink's are cheating......?

Juggernaut x2's picture

IIllegal- like when the CIA/mossad gives weapons to ISIS 

SafelyGraze's picture

the interpretation of the photos is incorrect

if oil had been sold, it would have been sold in dollars

and there would be a record of the sale

if there is no record of a sale in dollars, then oil was not transferred

it is that simple

xhugs and xhappy xhrismas,
the xhissingers 

bobcatz's picture

Agree. Besides, what's the US gonna do about it? China is NOT Iraq.

The ONLY thing the US is really good at is setting the Middle East on fire for Israhell. http://wp.me/p4OZ4v-2g9

auricle's picture

Must be done on cloudy days from here on out.

07564111's picture

LoL no, do it on the best viewing days possible and show the US the finger and laugh.

wren's picture

And we keep funding the UN. Granted.....not as much as we once did...

shitshitshit's picture

Americanos have a lot of chutzpah knowing that almost every nation on earth told them to fuck off not a week ago. These sore assholes really think the world will rally behind them for their immoral blockade on north Korea. Who do they think they are? 

Do they realize the possibility that this has been organized by China to show them the finger publicly? 

The day of reckoning will come when these Kanada homos will rally mother Russia. 

07564111's picture

HaHaHaHa :D Russia definitely don't give a shit what you think.

stacking12321's picture

"Ship-to-ship trade with North Korea on the high seas is forbidden in UNSC Resolution 2375"

the UN and the USA do not have any right to tell others what they commerce they can engage in, in international waters, and to attempt to force others to their will, would be an act of piracy.

but, that's what it has come to, hasn't it?

the pirate and mafia empire of the usa, UN, EU, and the so-called "civilized" world, are in fact a gang of pirates and thugs.

 

07564111's picture

LoL what a fucking chump you are.

You've been 'funding' the UN to get your own way just like the control exercised over the WTO, IMF and the World Bank. I got no problem getting rid of the UN, but, lets play fair and dump those others at the same so you got no control over anything.

And since we are on the subject of UN shit,,,get the fuck out of Syria.

Captain Nemo de Erehwon's picture

China is spreading CCCP (Cheap Crappy Chinese Products that are increasingly overpriced and again seem to break out of the box) all over. The US can either hate them long time, or stop buying from them and just let them let the rocketman fly. It will also teach Apple a lesson, not that many are buying into the X anyway inspite of their attempts to slow down earlier versions make their older versions as safe as a brick.

Consuelo's picture

 

 

That cheap Chinese Crap computer/keyboard/laptop, etc., you're banging away on sure works good though, don't it...?   

What's that you say - it's not made in China...?   Where then - Idaho...?

USA!!!   USA!!!   USA!!!

Antifaschistische's picture

Let's cut another $200 million from the UN funding!!

TBT or not TBT's picture

We are shocked, shocked to find the chicomm dictatorship propping up Little Rocketman in this establishment. 

Omen IV's picture

Illegally???

They should do what is good for them whether Chinese or Korean

The USA Murdered millions in 1950-53
in Korea

Based on MacArthur false flag pretext

Leave them alone and the Problem will go away

Kayman's picture

So abandon Japan, South Korea and the Philippines?  Good strategy, numbskull.

Parrotile's picture

Maybe the Chinese prefer "Little Rocket-Man" in their immediate back yard, rather than a US-owned "Unified Korea" - they see what is happening on Russia's western borders, and prefer to avoid such problems.

TBT or not TBT's picture

Yes.  The dictatorship want to keep dictating.  All that prosperity and freedom isn't enough of an upside to compensate for losing your absolute ruler gig.  It's good to be king. 

TBT or not TBT's picture

Cheap Chinese made spy satellites. 

Akzed's picture

Hey, the CIA needs oil to run its NK playground.

JRobby's picture

Neocons doing backflips, drawing up declaration(s) of war.

Should solve alot of the banking system problems EVERYWHERE which are UNSUSTAINABLE.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/888670/North-Korea-china-join-world...

 

Cynicles II's picture

Akin whey the gov limits the unalienable rights of the US citizenry.

 

farflungstar's picture

And every above-board weapons deal the US gives to Saudi Arabia gets them that much closer to victory in Yemen.

GreatUncle's picture

Morally no different to ISIS selling oil to Turkey to fuel a war but nobody said anything about that ...

There was traders handling these sales ... where are they?

Diatom's picture

Smuglers love sanctions...

Easy money...

Justin Case's picture

30 illegal transactions involving Chinese vessels selling oil to North Korea.

Illegal says who? the empire? F.U. Go pound salt.

Badsamm's picture

Any pictures of stolen Syrian oil being transported through Turkey into Israel’s waiting hands

Badsamm's picture

Any pictures of stolen Syrian oil being transported through Turkey into Israel’s waiting hands

Ignatius's picture

And so... what?

Juggernaut x2's picture

"Illegally"? According to who- Orange Jesus and the Wall St Kosher Cabal?

AllBentOutOfShape's picture

China selling OIL to the North Koreans? OH! THE HORROR!!!

US giving MONEY & WEAPONS to head-chopping terrorists? Meh....

Parrotile's picture

"One law for the USA, another law for everyone else".

Seems "everyone else" has had enough of those double standards, and everyone else KNOWS the US really can do nothing to enforce them. 

More bravado / bluster / bullying, more decide to "drop the Dollar" for very good reason (e.g. - www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-01/bnp-paribas-fined-more...billion.../55624... ) - for "violating" US-imposed (and illegal) "sanctions".

 

 

 

null's picture

Not much geopolitically.
But we can stop pretending that kissing China’s butt has any positive impact on American interests. At that point, those who really think that China can stand on her own can provide a pleasant surprise for the rest of us, or not, but the irritating “what will China say” will surely wind down.

Much may change in practice if DJT made a personal appeal for cooperation ... which I doubt because they’d be way too chicken to screw him over.

Chief_Illiniwek's picture

As Al Gore is fond of saying - Define illegal .

bamawatson's picture

slimey sob said "no controlling legal authority"
when he was clearly violating law by shaking down monks for contributions via his official vp phone from his official vp quarters

whatsupdoc's picture

Perhaps interfering in everyone else's business might get tiring after a while.  Let the whole world resist the dictates of the USA ...

Umh's picture

Many today and decades ago for that matter do not realize that the US was embargoing oil to Japan before Pearl Harbor was bombed.

shankster's picture

Or that US companies supplied oil and synthetic oil to Hitler's regime.

TBT or not TBT's picture

Democrats admired what Hitler and Mussolini were achieving.    In America, that pesky Constitution fucked up Wilson's and then FDR's Fully Progfascist plans. Though they did wound the Republic gravely. 

null's picture

Why not bring up the war of 1812 while you’re out of fresh ideas?

Justin Case's picture

Henry Ford supplied engines, Standard Oil supplied luftwaffe with tetraethyl lead lead for fuel. Who layed the rail tracks to the camps? Who financed Hitler- George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

TBT or not TBT's picture

They had brutally enslaved swaths of Asia at that point.   They'd been at it for decades.