North Korea – Ship-to-Ship Transfers

Rewards for Justice (RFJ) is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information that leads to the disruption of financial mechanisms of persons engaged in certain activities that support North Korea (“DPRK”), including money laundering, exportation of luxury goods to North Korea, specified cyber-activity and actions that support weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation.

North Korea maintains a shadow fleet of ships to help the regime evade UN Security Council (UNSC) sanctions limiting certain North Korean exports, such as coal and metal ore. These ships also violate sanctions limiting petroleum product imports to North Korea by conducting ship-to-ship transfers of oil to North Korean vessels. This activity provides resources and revenue that support the regime’s development of weapons of mass destruction.

Under this reward offer, RFJ seeks information on individuals, vessels, and enterprises associated with North Korea’s illicit import and export of sanctioned commodities via ship-to-ship transfers at sea.

As part of this illicit trafficking in oil, coal, and other commodities, DPRK ships utilize deceptive practices such as disabling automatic identification systems (AIS), falsifying documentation, and changing vessel names to evade detection and to obscure the origin and destination of the cargo.

For example, on at least two occasions in October 2025, a North Korean-flagged ship in the East China Sea ceased its AIS transmissions and appeared to have rendezvoused with two other tankers – the Hui Xin and an another unidentified vessel — to conduct ship-to-ship transfers of oil. The North Korea-flagged ship then returned to North Korea presumably laden with an illicit shipment of oil.

In late December 2025, the Hui Xin was observed conducting another ship-to-ship transfer of petroleum products to yet another North Korean tanker under the cover of darkness.