Sino-DPRK Smuggling Sites Suggest Kim's Approval

North Korean authorities attempted to use the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to seal off the border in an effort to stop defections and the flow of illicit goods and information into and out of the country.

Newly smuggled passenger vehicles in Hyesan, North Korea awaiting further distribution. Photo by Asia Press (Rimjin-Gang), September 2025.

 

And, the new border fence is indeed the most complete and strongest undertaking to control the border in North Korea's history, and at first it did seem to be quite effective at accomplishing those goals. For instance, the number of defectors reaching South Korea fell from 1,047 in 2019 to just 63 in 2021. However, it's important to remember that the border fence wasn't the sole reason for this decline. Heightened internal security within North Korea and anti-pandemic measures in China and other third countries used by defectors to transit will have all played a role.

Nonetheless, North Korea's northern border and its coastlines were secured by over 3,800 kilometers of electrified fencing and thousands of additional guard posts. Kim Jong Un has also attempted (multiple times) to crackdown on corruption and bribery within the border guard forces and by local police to further strengthen security. 

However, these efforts appear to be on pause in Ryanggang Province.

An AccessDPRK review of the 400-km-long border between North Korea's Ryanggang Province and China shows that as early as August 2023, the first possible makeshift fording site (river crossing) across the Yalu River was constructed at a sandbar in Hyesan (41.411114° 128.186804°) to enable cross border smuggling activities. 

AccessDPRK has since located a total of 43 of these irregular crossing points, with 37 of them being capable of allowing vehicles to drive between countries at shallow points in the river, and a further six sites along deeper parts of the river are used for river barges to carry goods back and forth.

Map of over 40 makeshift crossing points across the Yalu River. Black locations are vehicle crossings, yellow locations within the box are barge crossings. Click for larger view.

Most of the fording sites were constructed in 2025, and Asia Press and NK News have published in depth reports on the activity. However, I want to add to their work and provide some additional context and detail.

First to recap their previous reporting, these fording sites are constructed at shallow river sites by dumping rock and debris into the river to create stable platforms, essentially weirs, for trucks and other vehicles to cross. And then they reach small ramps of rock enabling the vehicles to drive out of the river and onto islands or onto the riverbank, depending on the area's geography.

Fording site at Phungyang (41.431189° 127.885265°). Click for larger view.

From there, the smuggled items are brought through North Korea's border fence and are then stored at numerous sites along the border until being sent to their final destinations in towns within the country's interior. 

At locations further downriver in Kimhyongjik County, where the Yalu begins to deepen, a series of barge docks were constructed to enable additional trade. The shallow-draft barges are relatively small, only ~20 meters in length, but are large enough to carry vehicles (though unlikely) as well as consumer goods, equipment, and other material.

River barge crossing site (41.519380° 127.221360°).

I want to take a moment to highlight the point that when the smuggled goods are brought into North Korea, they aren't coming through unprotected parts of the border or through demolishing the border fence. At least twenty of the crossing points are at already-established gates within the fence that border guards use for their patrols, strongly implicating the complicity of local police and government officials.

Smuggling activity at border fence gate (41.393617° 128.051521°), detailed view. Click for larger image.

Indeed, so many locations sprung up in 2025, it suggests that they are being allowed by more than the local border guards and are likely operating with the tacit government approval of both North Korea and China as a means of state approved smuggling. ("Smuggling" is being used and not "trade" as the import of these goods violate United Nations sanctions and China's and North Korea's legal obligations under international law.)

These crossings are found within a 177-km-long stretch of border in Ryanggang Province between the village of Kumchang-ri in Kimhyongjik County in the west and the city of Hyesan to the east, and no similar crossings have yet been located along the land border with China that lies east of Mt. Paektu.

From these crossing points, the vehicles, construction equipment, and goods are taken to temporary storage sites before being sent further inland. Most of these inland sites have not been positively identified and are likely change frequently, but one location south of Hyesan has been identified.

This intermediate smuggling step was caught on Google Earth in the town of Samsu on July 30, 2025 and was subsequently written about in an exclusive AccessDPRK Patreon post on October 12.

Image of vehicles being stored in Samsu, July 30, 2025.

Samsu is 18 km south of Hyesan and doesn't sit on the main north-south highway nor is it connected to the country's rail network. Regardless, on July 30, 2025, 164 personal vehicles (sedans) were captured parked in five primary locations around town. Additionally, 49 trucks (~12 meters in length) are also seen in and around town, with several seen in the process of crossing a small river that bisects the town. 

These large-scale smuggling activities do not appear to happen on a daily or even weekly basis, but even if they are infrequent, the number of border crossings and the number of vehicles seen at Samsu could suggest that over the course of a year, there is a capacity for a thousand or more vehicles to be smuggled into North Korea, as well as thousands of tons of other goods annually. 

More investigation is needed to locate the other logistical waypoints, such as Samsu, to further build our understanding of how North Korea moves illicit goods within the country - from border towns all the way down to Pyongyang and beyond. 

2021 photo of Kim Jong Un. KCNA.

Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea has taken some of the most extraordinary steps in its history to block defections, control trade, and limit corruption along the border. However, these crossings point to the contradictions within North Korea government and society. 

At first glance, the sheer number of these illicit crossings would speak to how ingrained corruption is among North Korea's border guards and local officials. At the same time, it would be utterly implausible to assume that over 40 border crossings, some just a few hundred meters apart, using the formal network of fences within the border fence, and having goods sent to numerous purpose-built structures along the border could happen on an entirely illegal and spontaneous level or occur unseen by nearly the whole border population in the region.

North Korea's economy largely functions because of smuggling, not in spite of it, and the luxury goods that keep Pyongyang's elites supporting the Kim regime are almost exclusively acquired by the state through illicit means. 

It may be easy to assume this is illegal activity in the eyes of a state with a centrally planned economy, but it is quite likely that this wave of activity seen in 2025 is happening with Kim's blessing, as a means to import massive quantities of goods as quickly as possible - before pressure from Chinese officials, the international community, and internal security risks (information sharing etc.) move North Korea to clamp back down and reestablish tight control.

Indeed, these crossings represent a major threat in the form of defections, as they could provide defectors who have the right connections and the right amount of money, dozens of new escape routes - far more than existed just two years ago. 

But regardless of the risks, four years of near total trade restrictions has created a buildup of demand for everything from toothpaste to construction equipment. And the government's recent policy change to permit private vehicle ownership means that cars, in particular, are in high demand and offer an opportunity for the government to earn additional revenue through sales, and permitting and licensing fees.

And so, while this border activity may turn out to be temporary (something highly probable given Kim's waffling economic policies and defection concerns), the photographic and satellite evidence gathered over the last eight months represents some of the strongest visual evidence of large-scale sanctions evasion for overland routes. 

I would like to thank my current Patreon supporters who help make AccessDPRK possible: Donald Pearce, David M., Dylan D, Joe Bishop-Henchman, Joel Parish, John Pike, Jonathan J., NO ONE, Kbechs87, Raymond Ha, Russ Johnson, Squadfan, Timberwolf, and Yong H. 

--Jacob Bogle, February 9, 2026

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Kim Jong-un's First Decade - Gassing Up the Country

This is the first of the supplemental articles for the Kim Jong-un's First Decade in Power series. It deals with vehicle ownership, the supply of fuel, and sanctions avoidance issues.

Photograph of the Pyongyang-Kwanmun gas station via Wikimapia.

Introduction

I have written about this topic more than once as it intersects with multiple areas of research, but one thing that has been made clear is that the rise of the modern gas station within North Korea and changes toward ‘car culture’ have largely been a product of Kim Jong-un’s rule.

Thanks to the publication of the AccessDPRK 2021 Pro Map and newer Google Earth imagery for most towns in North Korea, I can now provide the most detailed picture yet of the country’s fueling infrastructure; a picture that has been largely painted in Kim Jong-un’s first decade in power.

Of the 157 gas stations that I have found, 149 of them have known construction dates. And of those, 63.8% were constructed since Kim Jong-un came to power. Additionally, four of the six stations whose exact year of construction isn’t known were at least constructed on or after 2012, meaning that two-thirds of all gas stations have been built in just the last decade.

While gas stations may not seem like an important topic, in the context of North Korea, they become a window into the country’s economy and reforms as they sit at the nexus of the growth of vehicle ownership, car culture, fuel imports, and sanctions avoidance activities.

To service an ever-larger vehicle fleet, whether they’re state-owned or private, easy to access fuel needs to be made available. And to keep those gas stations operational, a steady supply of refined petroleum must also exist.

To cover this issue, this article will be broken down into three main topics: vehicle ownership, gas station construction, and fuel supply and sanctions.

 

Vehicle Ownership & Car Culture

This is the Peokkugi I Series from North Korea's own Pyeonghwa Motors. Its design is heavily influenced by the Fiat Doblo. Image via Pyeonghwa Motors sales brochure.

The streets of Pyongyang, a city of 3 million, are famous for not being full. Traffic jams are rare and brief, and most people get around by subway or tram service. Outside of the capital, most people have to walk or ride a bicycle. If they have a few extra won, they can jump on the back of a farming truck or military vehicle to make their way. Long journeys are predominantly taken via train.

So it might be surprising for many to know that North Korea has its own automobile industry, of sorts. While North Korea has been producing various vehicles since 1958, it wasn’t until the 2000s that they started to take the idea of manufacturing non-commercial passenger vehicles seriously. 

Established in 2000 as a joint venture with the South Korean-based Unification Church as part of the South’s Sunshine Policy at the time, Pyeonghwa Motors was meant to usher in a new era of not only economic cooperation between the two countries, but also to help fulfill Pyongyang’s desire to have a robust automotive industry.

Pyeonghwa’s plant in Nampo has a nominal capacity of 20,000 cars a year, yet, in most years fewer than 1,000 vehicles were manufactured. Its peak was in 2011 when 1,820 units were made. And like the products of North Korea’s other vehicle plants, their creations are largely Chinese-manufactured, DPRK-assembled car/truck/bus kits. The few models that are predominantly manufactured within the country are merely modified copies of foreign vehicles and still require many foreign parts.

However, even if North Korea has yet to develop its own truly domestic and indigenous car manufacturing base, tens of thousands of cars, trucks, and buses on North Korean roads come from North Korean factories, and they are in enough numbers as to make up a sizable percentage of North Korea’s entire vehicle fleet. What’s more, the regime has managed to import a number of vehicles over years. Along with the increasing privatization of transportation services (a reported 6,000 taxis are in Pyongyang alone) this has all helped keep urban populations moving.

Regulations were relaxed in 2017 to allow for more car registrations, as most passenger vehicles were still technically owned by state enterprises and lent or leased out. Compared to the annual income of North Koreans, prices are still prohibitively expensive, ranging from $10,000 to $30,000 for most models, but it is estimated that 20% of Pyongyang families now have their own cars thanks to a growing middle class.

As mentioned, an alternative to outright ownership is “leasing” them from a state firm. According to DailyNK, this involves “The owner of the car must pay 150,000 KPW to the enterprise for using their name and to make a working record, and also needs to pay 50,000 KPW each month to the Security Department for a license. In addition, they’ll have to pay more than 300,000 KPW in bribes for various reasons”.

Despite supply challenges and the fact that cars are still a major luxury, the regime has taken steps to normalize driving and to familiarize the next generation with car culture, perhaps in anticipation of broader car ownership in coming years.

In 2017 the government began to build children’s “traffic parks” which are miniaturized city blocks with fake buildings, streets, street signs, and even bridges. Kids are given mock cars to drive (pedal) around with and learn the rules of the road. Most towns have at least one of these parks while a few have had their construction delayed. In total, the AccessDPRK database has located 149 driving parks.

These reforms and other changes also mark a change in ideology, where having your own car isn’t just a decadent part of Western capitalism but can be something to which citizens are implicitly told they can finally aspire to. But to accomplish this, ready access to fuel is needed.

 

Gas Station Construction

This graph shows the number of identified gas stations constructed each year from 2012 to 2020. It is based on the data found within the AccessDPRK 2021 Map, Pro Version. 

Unlike in basically every other country on earth, getting fuel (gasoline or diesel) in North Korea has typically been restricted to those operating state-owned and military vehicles. People would get rations or would otherwise need to get permission from their factory, farm, or other work unit. From there, the fuel would have been distributed either from basic fuel tanks on site or would need to come from centralized fuel distribution centers that would send out fuel as needed. An example of one of these large depots can be found at 39.094342° 125.615611°.

Every town had fuel, but the concept of a western-style gas station was mostly unknown, and I have only been able to locate 54 in the whole country that existed prior to 2012. While the centralized supply of fuel seems to have been adequate for most of the country’s history, it was simply too complicated and the sites too remote to be responsive to the increase in private vehicle ownership and in taxi and bus companies.

As the graph above shows, and corresponding with Kim Jong-un’s assumption of power, there was a marked increase in the number of gas stations being constructed each year from six 2012 to a peak of twenty-two in 2017. And while the growth rate peaked in 2017, newly built gas stations have shown up every single year. Additionally, many of the older sites have been renovated and expanded within the same time frame.

While the beginnings of vehicle ownership and the establishment of taxi companies began years earlier, there is no debate that this switch to a more modern system of gas distribution has taken hold and was driven by the Kim Jong-un regime.

Of course, this reform wasn’t done altruistically to make driving around the country easier. The state issues permits for gas station construction and state-owned companies have also been involved in the establishment and operation of new sites, likely resulting in considerable annual revenue. One of the most well-known cases of state ownership is the Air Koryo gas station in Pyongyang’s Kangan District.

Since 2015, the state airline has been trying to diversify itself and may operate several others gas stations. They also run a taxi service and a food company. As NKNews notes, Air Koryo is owned by the military and so these businesses are not only an attempt to gain revenue for the government but for the military in particular.

This image shows two gas stations. The smaller one has existed since before 2004 while the larger facility was constructed from 2012-2014. The smaller station only provides fueling services, but the larger station also has a vehicle maintenance facility. Note: the numerous small, temporary structures in the image are related to a major building project on Saesalim Street, Sadong District.

In terms of design, many of the gas stations are stand-alone structures that only provide fuel and perhaps small consumer goods like snacks or phone cards, which most people around the world would find recognizable. Others are part of larger facilities that include vehicle maintenance services for commercial and passenger vehicles.

In a country where most vehicles are still used for industrial purposes (materials transport, dump trucks, etc.) and where constant vehicle maintenance is required, as most vehicles are decades old, clusters of these stations are occasionally created to handle the demand.

An example of this can be seen at the Potonggang Reservoir in Pyongyang where there are three distinct fueling and maintenance facilities next to each other.

However, despite the clear rise in the number of gas stations, a vision of long highways with gas stations dotting the landscape or where there’s one on every corner in town is still a distant one. South Korea has an estimated 11,800 gas stations. Even when considering the South’s larger population and economy, the fact that North Korea has fewer than 200 is a stark reminder of how far the country must go to eventually become a nation that caters to the driver.

There are very few gas stations along the country’s highways. Along the major Reunification Highway, for the nearly 100 km distance between Sariwon and Kaesong there are no evident gas stations. And in the country’s interior regions there aren’t any of the modern sites outside of major towns. Drivers must rely on the old method of getting refueled and would be well advised to carry an emergency supply of gas with them.

Indeed, the decades of fuel scarcity led to the adoption of wood gasification in countless vehicles. And while modern gas stations are spreading, they still remain largely confined to major cities – particularly those cities involved in international trade. The seven cities of Pyongyang (47), Sunchon (10), Rason (8), Chongjin (7), Hamhung (7), Nampo (6), and Sinuiju (6) hold nearly two-thirds of all gas stations in the country.

Fuel Supply, Sanctions, and Sanctions Avoidance

It is important to note that while gas stations have spread around the country, most places still rely on the more traditional way of getting fuel into vehicles. These fueling compounds can be found all over the country and many have been renovated over the years. This implies that the new gas stations built in the last decade have not merely been replacing an existing system, but that they are creating a net increase in demand.

This need for more petroleum supplies has been demonstrated by the expansion of the Nampo fuel terminal and the construction of storage tanks in other parts of the country as well. In Nampo, since 2018 more than 30 storage tanks have been added or are under construction. 

As North Korea lacks any natural oil reserves, the United Nations has placed sanctions limiting how much it can import as a result of its nuclear and missile programs. This sanctions regime only allows for 500,000 barrels of refined petroleum and 4 million barrels of crude oil products to be imported each year.

To get around sanctions, North Korea has been employing ship-to-ship transfers (STS) and then brings their newly loaded vessels into a home port to offload the illegal petroleum products. Each transfer can provide North Korea with anywhere from 500,000 to over 1 million liters of oil (6,289 barrels).

Based on United Nations reporting and using publicly available ship tracking data, there are six primary vessels engaged in STS activities along with several smaller vessels. Each ship can make numerous transfers a year. In 2020, the US found 32 individual instances of fuel being smuggled to DPRK ships within Chinese waters, while the Chinese government was alerted by the UN to 46 instances of smuggling activities via STS.

All of this adds up to a lot of fuel coming into the country. According to the 2020 UN Panel of Experts report, the US estimates that “under the one-third laden scenario, these deliveries would have amounted to almost three times the total cap of 500,000 barrels set in paragraph 5 of resolution 2397 (2017). Under the half-laden scenario, the deliveries would have amounted to more than four times the cap and, under the fully laden scenario, they would have amounted to almost eight times the cap.” (emphases added)

But ship-to-ship transfers aren’t the only way North Korea can get illicit petroleum. There is an aging but still operational pipeline from China that is owned and operated by China National Petroleum Corp. North Korea’s only functional oil refinery, the Ponghwa Chemical Factory, is also located nearby, enabling them to convert crude oil from the pipeline into other needed products.

While China is party to the UN sanctions against North Korea, enforcement of those sanctions is left up to each member state, and the pipeline is not monitored by independent organizations.

In 2016, an estimated 270,000 tonnes (36,800 barrels) of fuel – both gasoline and diesel – was transferred to North Korea through the pipeline according to official Chinese data. A further 520,000 tonnes (70,900 barrels) of crude oil was also sent. However, customs data isn’t always made available and it has been notoriously unrealizable. What’s more, is the pipeline’s ability to transfer not just crude oil but refined products as well. At full flow, it could send eight times North Korea’s annual legal allotment.

A 2020 report by The Nautilus Institute reveals that oil transfer via pipeline is still ongoing through this COVID-era, even if other import methods have temporarily been restricted. Its authors estimate that crude oil exports by the Dandong-Sinuiju Pipeline from China in 2019 came to 715,000 tons (approx. 5.2 million barrels), but increased those exports to nearly 750,000 tons (almost 5.5 million barrels) in 2020 – far in excess of UN limits.

The current trade restrictions imposed by Pyongyang due to COVID has likely impacted a range of smuggling activities, but it seems rather clear that North Korea has the networks of ships, allies, and infrastructure to routinely surpass international limits.

And the operation of gas stations is one key to realizing that fact.

Satellite imagery exists of many of the gas stations during different phases of construction. Through these images one can see that each gas station typically has 2-4 (sometimes more) fuel storage tanks. But to err on the side of conservative estimates, I will use two tanks as the average.

Using measurements attained from “Wonsan Station #2” at 39.142021° 127.385198°, I estimate that each fueling tank has a capacity to store 7,733 gallons (184 barrels) of gasoline. If we assume that all of the 103 identified gas stations built in the last decade have the same sized tanks, only have two of them, and are refilled only once a month, then the demand for additional fuel products has risen by 19,115,976 gallons (455,142 barrels) each year of refined petroleum. That’s almost the country’s entire legal import limit just to operate these new gas stations and is based on using conservative estimates.

Busier stations will need more. Numerous gas stations have 4+ storage tanks. Some tanks are larger. Therefore, the actual supply needs could easily be greater.

There are still the other 54 older gas stations, there’s still the centralized distribution network that those in rural areas rely on, there’s still the need for aviation fuel, heavy fuel oil, and the need for supplies for their fishing fleet and military vehicles.

Of course, their refinery can produce refined products, but the point is that nearly half a million barrels of gas is now – newly – in demand, a demand that has not been accounted for by adjusting sanctions levels. A demand, it seems, that can only be realistically met through illicit imports.

~ ~ ~ ~

I have scheduled this project to run through to the end of the year, with a new article coming out roughly every 10 days or so. If you would like to support the project and help me with research costs, please consider supporting AccessDPRK on Patreon. Those supporters donating $15 or more each month will be entitled to a final PDF version of all the articles together that will also have additional information included once the series is finished. They will also receive a Google Earth map related to the events in the series.

Supporters at other levels will be sent each new article a day before it’s published and will also receive a mention as seen below.

 

I would like to thank my current Patreon supporters: Amanda O., GreatPoppo, Joel Parish, John Pike, Kbechs87, Rinmanah, Russ Johnson, and ZS.

--Jacob Bogle, 9/1/2021

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