WASHINGTON — The United States has seized a North Korean shipping vessel that was violating American law and international sanctions, the Justice Department announced Thursday, a move certain to escalate tensions already on the rise because of recent North Korean weapons tests. Prosecutors said the carrier ship, the Wise Honest, was being used to export North Korean coal, a critical sector of the North’s economy that the United States and the United Nations have aggressively imposed sanctions on in an effort to force Pyongyang to end its nuclear weapons program. The ship was also being used to import heavy machinery. It was the first time the United States has seized a North Korean cargo vessel for international sanctions violations, the Justice Department said. Officials said the seizure is part of a broad plan to enforce the international sanctions and ultimately pressure North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program. “This sanctions-busting ship is now out of service,” said John C. Demers, the head of the Justice Department’s national security division. The complaint was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan on Thursday by the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.<doc-sep>U.S. Takes Control Of North Korean 'Sanctions-Busting' Ship Enlarge this image toggle caption Department of Justice via AP Department of Justice via AP U.S. authorities announced on Thursday that they have taken control of a coal ship North Korea was allegedly using to evade international sanctions. The ship, called the M/V Wise Honest, was first held by Indonesian authorities more than a year ago and is now being moved to American Samoa. "Today's civil action is the first-ever seizure of a North Korean cargo vessel for violating international sanctions," Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. "We are willing and able to deploy the full array of law enforcement tools to detect, deter, and prosecute North Korea's deceptive attempts to evade sanctions." "This sanctions-busting ship is now out of service," said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers. This seizure comes on the same day that North Korea was reported to have launched two projectiles suspected to be short-range missiles. It carried out a similar test several days earlier. The U.S. special representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, was in Seoul on Thursday to speak to South Korean officials. Berman stressed that the other events are unrelated. "There is no connection at all between the recent activities of North Korea and our seizure warrant," he said. "We've been pursuing this for months." U.S. authorities say the vessel broke U.S. law by processing payments through U.S. banks for the ship's maintenance, equipment and improvements. The ship has been operated by the Korea Songi Shipping Co. since November 2016 — which, according to the complaint, is a subordinate of the Korean People's Army. North Korea hasn't actually had control of the ship for more than a year — it was seized in April 2018 by Indonesia. Indonesia said in a letter published by the United Nations that it had noticed the ship's "automatic identification system" was turned off, which could help it avoid detection. It then found that the ship was sailing with two flags — North Korea and Sierra Leone — which is not allowed. On board was tens of thousands of tons of coal. On April 4 of last year, the Indonesian navy detained the crew and the ship. Indonesia has said that in late July, it received a request for mutual legal assistance from the U.S., which appears to have eventually led to it turning over the ship to U.S. authorities. According to the complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, the ship was unloading coal in ports in China and Russia and returning to North Korea laden with heavy machinery. "Coal exports have been one of North Korea's most proficient ways of earning foreign currency, and coal shipments are incredibly valuable, particularly the amount that ships like the Wise Honest can carry," Cameron Trainer, a research associate focused on U.N. sanctions on North Korea at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told NPR. "My best guess is that proceeds from these coal sales are never actually going to North Korea, but they're being used to buy things internationally, which then get back to North Korea — according to the complaint — on the same vessel," he added. A March report by the U.N. said that ship-to-ship transfers were rendering sanctions against North Korea ineffective, allowing the country to import oil and export coal above the allowed limits. In 2018, North Korea imported over half-a-million barrels of refined petroleum, it says. The transfers take place on the open seas using a variety of techniques to try to hide the identity of the vessels involved. North Korea regularly repaints and reflags vessels to hide their identity, while the ships they meet switch off locator beacons and other identifying hardware to make the illicit transfers. The vessels often coordinate a meeting on the open ocean through messaging platforms like WeChat. Generally, seizures of North Korean ships are not common, though they have happened before. One reason for their rarity, Trainer said, is that it would be very provocative to seize a North Korean ship on the open ocean due to the issue of sovereignty. "When a vessel is sailing internationally it's under the jurisdiction of whatever country's flag it's sailing as. So the fact that it's a North Korean vessel in international waters means it is effectively North Korean territory," Trainer said. "So interdicting or seizing that vessel would be incredibly escalatory because it would be kind of, somewhat, tantamount to an invasion of North Korea." The calculation changes, he said, when a ship enters the waters of another country, where it must obey its laws. NPR science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel contributed to this report.<doc-sep>The United States’ seizure, announced Thursday, of a North Korean vessel in Indonesia likely won’t affect already stalled denuclearization negotiations. That’s the assessment of Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation. “The U.S. legally seized the ship that Indonesia seized last year. Indonesia seized the ship for violation of U.N. resolutions,” said Klingner, a former chief of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Korea branch, who warned against reading too much into the U.S. action by the Justice Department. “This was a law enforcement procedure,” he said. The 17,000-ton cargo vessel, named the Wise Honest, was reportedly used to illicitly ship coal from North Korea and deliver heavy machinery back to the country, according to the Justice Department. “Today’s action by the Justice Department was a positive step in enforcing U.N. resolutions and U.S. laws,” Klingner said. “Successive U.S. administrations, including the Trump administration, have pulled their punches on fully implementing U.S. laws. Hopefully, President [Donald] Trump will not reverse today’s actions as he did law enforcement measures by the Treasury Department in March.” The ship’s allegedly illegal cargo became a U.S. legal matter because payments for maintenance of, equipment for, and improvements to the Wise Honest were made in U.S. dollars through unwitting U.S. banks, in violation of U.S. law, according to the Justice Department. “This sanctions-busting ship is now out of service,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said in a statement. “North Korea, and the companies that help it evade U.S. and U.N. sanctions, should know that we will use all tools at our disposal—including a civil forfeiture action such as this one or criminal charges—to enforce the sanctions enacted by the U.S. and the global community. “We are deeply committed to the role the Justice Department plays in applying maximum pressure to the North Korean regime to cease its belligerence,” Demers said. U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman of the Southern District of New York said this was the “first-ever seizure of a North Korean cargo vessel for violating international sanctions.” The Justice Department action comes shortly after North Korea test-launched a series of short-range missiles. “I don’t think it has anything to do with the missile launches or negotiations,” Klingner said. “People will ask, ‘Why today?’ My guess is, it’s a process matter. It’s not a major increase in U.S. pressure.” Earlier Thursday, Trump was asked about the North Korean missile launches. “We’re looking at it very seriously right now,” the president said. “Nobody’s happy about it. … I don’t think they’re ready to negotiate.” Because the ship seizure’s initially occurred last year, Klingner doubts North Korea will respond now. He added that since Trump’s summit meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in Singapore last June, the Trump administration has gone easy on North Korea. In March, the Treasury Department imposed additional sanctions on North Korea, and White House national security adviser John Bolton praised the move. However, Trump almost immediately reversed the move by his own officials. “President Trump says he has applied maximum pressure, but he has not. In the first year and a half, the administration applied more pressure on North Korea than the Obama administration did during eight years,” Klingner said. “That was good, but since Singapore, the administration has gone the opposite direction. Trump actually did something Obama never did; that’s reverse actions against North Korea. This [ship seizure] is not a case of Trump being tough on North Korea,” he said.<doc-sep>
The United State Justice Department announced on Thursday that it seized a North Korean cargo ship which violated international sanctions. The announcement came on the heels of the report that North Korea had fired multiple ballistic missiles into the ocean earlier on Thursday, its second weapons launch in a week, although US officials claim that the seizing of the ship was not related. This marks the first time that the US has seized a North Korean ship for violating international sanctions and could lead to an escalation of conflict between the two countries US Justice Department officials claim that the Wise Honest, the second largest North Korean ship, was used to export coal in violation of international sanctions to China, Russia, and other countries It also said that the ship carried heavy machinery on return trips which could be used in the country's nuclear programs. The ship is now being moved to US territory by the US Coast Guard and marshals. “This sanctions-busting ship is now out of service,” said US Assistant Attorney General John Demers. The UN Security Council passed a resolution in 2017 which banned North Korea from exporting coal. The Wise Honest was originally detained over a year ago by Indonesia in the Makassar Strait, where it was inspected and found to be lacking proper ship documentation. Ultimately, it was discovered that the ship was owned by a North Korean shipping company controlled by the military. U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman told reporters that payments for the ship were transferred through US banks in violation of US law. North Korea tried to conceal the ship's origin by false documentation and also turned off a signal system used by ships to alert other ocean vessels of its location and route. .