Two researchers with the Center for Advanced Defense Studies believe North Korea may be selling sand for big cash after 100 ships mysteriously floated into waters outside Haeju, North Korea, last May.
Lucas Kuo and Lauren Sung of the C4ADS said the North Korean regime has begun performing “ship to ship” transfers of goods, including sand, to skirt the watchful eye of United Nations sanctions, CNN reported Wednesday.
The duo believes North Korea raked in at least $22 million selling sand last year even though the U.N. passed sanctions against the country’s trade of earth and stone in December 2017. Sung said many of the ships entering North Korean seas were flying Chinese flags and that the practice of sand trading isn’t a new venture for the hermit kingdom.
“We found plenty of reports from the early 90s to the present, indicating that rather than this kind of being anything new, North Korea has always been exporting sand to a lot of its neighboring countries,” he said.
Sand has traditionally been a top export for North Korea, which sold more than $70 million worth of it to their South Korean neighbors in 2008 before the trading was halted.
