Satellite imagery of Nampo port shows North Korean waters busier than at any point on record. A year-long investigation by the Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights (NKHR), supported by expert maritime analysis from Data Desk (UK) and combining vessel-tracking analysis of 47 ships, has found that sanctioned North Korean vessels are now making more foreign port calls than at any point since before the pandemic. Based on testimony from 22 witnesses, the report reveals that the Ministry of National Defense has consolidated an almost total monopoly over North Korea's coal and mineral exports and is managing its profits through a financial architecture built entirely inside China that international sanctions have failed to reach.
The breakdown of international sanctions monitoring has coincided with a steep increase in vessel detections at North Korea's five major ports, rising from 783 in 2019 to 3,756 in 2025. More than 3,000 of those detections were recorded at Nampo alone - North Korea's largest oil and coal cargo terminal and its primary maritime gateway - where foreign flags of convenience have been largely replaced by Chinese-flagged vessels, signaling a deepening normalization of direct Chinese commercial involvement in sanctioned North Korean trade.
Coal exports from North Korea are often produced by slave labor enforced by the Ministry of State Security and Ministry of Public Security - the institutions responsible for the gravest human rights violations inside the country - but their export is controlled almost exclusively by enterprises affiliated with the Ministry of National Defense, which owns the transport infrastructure and commands the border and coastal zones through which smuggling occurs. The revenue does not pass through the international banking system. Instead, it is managed through secret accounts in Chinese banks, rendering the 2017 SWIFT exclusion of North Korea largely ineffective. Funds never need to enter North Korea: export proceeds and stolen wages earned by overseas forced laborers are all settled within China by representatives of each North Korean organ and spent on military imports and goods there.
The same sanctioned vessels supposed to have been grounded by international sanctions framework are now making more foreign port calls. The steepest increase is observed after Russia's 2024 veto of the UN Panel of Experts of 1718 Sanctions Committee, the body that was mandated to monitor North Korean sanctions violations. A Russian-operated pier at Rajin port in the DPRK's Special Economic Zone, operating supposedly under a sanctions exemption, appears in vessel-tracking records as a loading and offloading point for coal. Given that the Republic of Korea has not imposed a full ban on Russian coal imports since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the route raises serious concerns about North Korean minerals entering South Korean supply chains disguised as Russian in origin.
