Intrigue on the high seas has always been a matter of fascination and news this month that the United States had seized North Korea’s second-largest trading vessel, “Wise Honest,” is a modern tale of politics, trade and sanctions.

A deeper look into what has happened reveals there’s a lot of political red tape in this tale. This chapter in particular is about the United States imposing international sanctions against North Korea in a way that’s tangible to that country’s economy.

It starts with North Korea’s ongoing nuclear weapons testing plan and five series of sanctions that have been placed on North Korea by the United Nations Security Council since 2016.

Sanctions prevent a country from doing business internationally. The sanctions forbid North Korea from shipping coal. The Wise Honest can haul various cargo, so its presence on the ocean is not totally conspicuous.

In April 2018, the Wise Honest was in route to Indonesia to trade a $3 million load of coal to be bought by an Indonesian broker. At that point, it was in violation of United Nations sanctions. Many North Korean ships fly both that country’s flag and the flag of Sierra Leone, but that doesn’t fool anyone. When Indonesian authorities first approached the ship, it wasn’t flying any flag at all.

Ships on the seas, whether in international waters or in port are required to operate an Automatic Identification System, which allows any vessel or port running radar or advanced electronic surveillance to identify other ships near them. On the website 

marinetraffic.com, people can follow the course of any ship using an AIS. Despite being 177 meters long — that’s a pretty  big ship — the AIS for the Wise Honest has been disabled since 2017. 

Indonesian authorities began investigating what the Wise Honest was doing and they uncovered a shady story involving a planned offloading of coal at sea to another vessel in Indonesian waters through the previously mentioned Indonesian broker. Apparently offloading and onloading cargo at sea is the method of operation for North Korean ships in violation of trade sanctions. Surprisingly, the final destination for the coal was to be South Korea. It’s believed the transaction of the coal to South Korea was being done by the Indonesian broker and the South Korean buyer didn’t know the origin of the coal.

Indonesian authorities, while trying to figure out what was up with this ship, detained it and its crew of approximately 25. Over the course of a year, one of the crew died from complications of diabetes. Meanwhile, at least two others became ill — one with a brain tumor — and they were removed from the ship for medical treatment overseen by the North Korean Embassy in Indonesia. All of the members of the crew have since been repatriated to North Korea. 

The United States became involved earlier this month by taking the unique step of seizing the Wise Honest for its violations of UN sanctions. This is the first time in history the United States has seized a ship for this reason.

Currently, the Wise Honest is in port in American Samoa after being towed there.

President Donald Trump met with North Korean President Kim Jung-Un in June to attempt a bi-lateral trade agreement and encourage the North Koreans to come into compliance with United Nation’s rules, which since violated, have led to the sanctions. North Korea says the sanctions hurt the country’s civilian population the most and there’s little doubt that’s true. However, even if the sanctions were lifted for humanitarian purposes, few believe the North Korean government would use its ability to trade to enrich the welfare of its citizens. Money raised by international trade by North Korea is largely diverted to its military and its weapons testing program.

While North Korea has its own natural resources, and even under sanctions can do business in several different ways, trade provided by the Wise Honest helped North Korea generate cash. By taking the second largest ship out of North Korea’s fleet for the past year, and now impounding it indefinitely, there are negatives for that country’s government. It’s not a massive blow by any means, but it takes a card out of the deck and sends the message that North Korean vessels illegally involved in trade runs to international ports or locations may not return.

A side note to this story is that over the history of the Wise Honest, U.S. officials have determined that improvements to the ship were made with money channeled through financial institutions in the U.S., which is against U.S. law. Apparently, the banks involved didn’t know what was going on, but the federal government has put together a case tracing the money.

The name of the ship serves as a bad pun for the mismanaged and highly deceitful story of the Wise Honest. 

— Matt Johnson is publisher of the Monroe Times. His column is published Wednesdays.