North Korea to “Take Necessary Measures” Towards Mexico for Ship Detainment

It looks like the North Koreans are up to no good off the coast of Mexico:

North Korea on Wednesday said Mexico has “forcibly detained” one of its ships months after it ran aground off Mexico’s Gulf coast last year, and Pyongyang blames the United States for making sure the ship is not released.

 North Korea’s deputy permanent representative to the U.N. told reporters that his country will take unspecified “necessary measures to make the ship leave immediately.”

An Myong Hun said the Mu Du Bong is strictly a commercial ship and that more than 50 crew remain on board.

A U.N. panel, however, has reported that the ship is controlled by a company that has tried to evade U.N. sanctions imposed in response to North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

The panel’s recent report says the Pyongyang-based Ocean Maritime Management Co. has simply renamed most of its vessels to avoid detection. Nuclear-armed North Korea has a history of using front companies for that purpose.  [Associated Press]

You can read the rest at the link, but the article does not say what the ship was transporting.  The ship was coming from Cuba so it probably had sugar in it maybe hiding illicit cargo like the ship the Panamanians detained in 2013.  I have always believed that these ships that these sanctioned ships should be auctioned off instead of given back to the North Koreans.  That would actually significantly hit the Kim regime in the pocketbook.

You can read more at NK News that believes the intent of this ship was simply to test the UN sanctions put in place after what happened with the prior ship in 2013.