They “disappear” by floating around in the ocean.
Many mysteries remain unsolved around the globe. What happened to Atlantis, the lost city? Why are the Nazca Lines only visible from the sky? Did JFK have a second shooter? There are also the less-serious mysteries that nag at our brains. Is that the other sock? My sandwich was stolen from my work fridge. The subject of this article is: How did Kim Jong Un obtain a Mercedes Maybach in North Korea, when the automaker refuses to deal with the dictatorship.
Mercedes does business with this isolated, problematic regime. As we reported last April a spokesperson for Daimler stated that North Korean luxury goods are not allowed to be sold by companies. The leader was seen riding in a fancy Mercedes Maybach S600 and CNN reports could help explain why. It appears that they were probably smuggled into the country. It’s not surprising, is it?
CNN specifically identifies a study by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (Washington) as being involved in this investigation. Although none of the claims made in the report can be independently verified, CNN believes that it tracked the route of two armored Maybachs over an eight-month period. The cars were loaded onto a ship bound to Osaka, Japan from the Dutch Port at Rotterdam. The cars were then shipped to Busan in South Korea.
However, nobody managed to sneak the cars across the border. They left on another ship bound to Russia. However, its tracking system was down for 19 days. After the signal was restored, the ship headed in the opposite direction carrying a load of coal but no cars. The Russian port where the ship docked was not recorded as having received any cars. This is where the paperwork trail ends. However, three North Korean cargo planes left Russia for Pyongyang just a few days later than this ship should have arrived.
This type of sea-going activity, especially turning off tracking transponders, is apparently a common tactic to violate sanctions law. It’s not the worst thing to smuggle in a luxury car. What else could be getting through this system?