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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