N

orth Korea may be focused on a public relations drive in Pyeongchang right now, but its efforts to hoodwink the international community extend way beyond the Korean peninsula. When it comes to circumventing economic sanctions, they extend into the most unexpected places, like Maputo, the leafy port city that is Mozambique’s capital.

Fishing is big business in this southern African country. North Korea has discovered that a slice of that business can be obtained with relative ease, using fishing boats that are simple to move and conceal. The trawlers represent just one area of illicit trade between the two countries. A CNN investigation has uncovered a web of “front” companies, as well as military cooperation and elite forces training deals — all, say UN investigators, in violation of international sanctions.

The contracts are worth millions of dollars; the cash is quietly funneled through regionally based North Korean diplomats.

According to a not-yet published UN report, North Korea earned US$200 million between January and September last year by exporting banned commodities. The same report indicates that the pariah state is flouting resolutions by using global oil supply chains, complicit foreign nationals, offshore company registries and the international banking system. In short, the efforts of the UN and United States to put the squeeze on the country do not appear to be working.

The trade goes way beyond fish. Military equipment is also driving cash into North Korean coffers. “Air missiles, manned portable surface-to-air missiles, military radar, air defense systems, the refurbishment of tanks — it’s a long list,” says Hugh Griffiths, chief investigator of the UN Panel of Experts monitoring the trade. The currency and revenues generated from all this activity can be used to fund North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, he added.

UN and US investigators are taking a much closer look at African countries’ relationships to North Korea, investigating at least eleven different nations. Many African liberation movements had ties and support from the North Korean regime before independence and through the Cold War, though the extent of the connections has been questioned.

Maputo has one obvious reminder of Mozambique’s relationship with Pyongyang: a bronze statue of Samora Machel, the country’s founding president, erected in 2011 and built by North Korea. It is another example of Pyongyang’s strange statue-making business, which was targeted by fresh UN sanctions in 2016.

Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest countries, faces the difficult choice between lucrative North Korean contracts and keeping the US and UN happy. The country received more than half a billion dollars from US agencies in 2016 alone.

For its part, Mozambique denies any wrongdoing: “At this moment, we are implementing all the sanctions that were declared by the United Nations against North Korea,” Alvaro O’da Silva, a director at Mozambique’s foreign ministry, told us. But he later backtracked, saying he didn’t have “detailed information” about sanctions.

Amid this swirl of evidence, the North Korean fishermen remain in their boats. Occasionally wandering into Maputo for a little shopping, they quietly go about their business, unfazed by the geopolitical implications of their stay.
_________________________________

The writer is international correspondent of CNN.