South Korea detains Tanzania-flagged ship over North sanctions
Seoul said it held the African-flagged cargo vessel Prada at Pyeongtaek after finding evidence it violated UN sanctions on North Korea.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects a military dockyard in the western port city of Nampo, in this photo provided by the Korean Central News Agency on March 21, 2025.
YONHAP
South Korea detained a Tanzania-flagged cargo ship suspected of violating United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions on North Korea after a government investigation found evidence that it had engaged in activities prohibited under the council's resolutions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Wednesday.
Vessel tracker MarineTraffic shows that the ship, called the Prada, has remained at Pyeongtaek Port in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi since arriving in March.
"The government carried out a joint investigation of the vessel after it entered Pyeongtaek Port based on information indicating that it had previously been involved in activities violating UNSC sanctions on North Korea," a ministry official said.
“The investigation found that the ship had participated in activities that violated UNSC resolutions, so the government detained it as a follow-up measure under the sanctions regime.”
The detention comes less than two months after seven countries — South Korea, the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the Britain — and the European External Action Service issued a joint statement on May 29, calling for stronger implementation of UN sanctions on North Korea.
The statement said the Prada and six other vessels were suspected of being involved in exports of North Korean coal and iron ore, activities prohibited under UNSC resolutions. It also urged the U.N. Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1718, which oversees sanctions on North Korea, to swiftly designate the seven vessels for sanctions after they were submitted for consideration in December last year.
The Prada is a 17,400-ton cargo ship that has operated under several names over the years. It sailed as Huataisahn from 2008 to 2020, was renamed Sophia in 2024 and was later renamed Prada.
Diplomatic observers have suggested the repeated name changes may have been intended to evade U.N. sanctions.
Voice of America reported that satellite imagery showed the vessel, while operating under the name Sophia, loading coal at the port of Nampo, North Korea, in September and December in 2024.
BY SHIM SEOK-YONG [[email protected]]
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
