MIAMI—North Korean freighters made at least five visits to Cuba in the past four years, although other North Korea ships may well have sailed to the island under different flags or ownership documents, shipping monitors said Wednesday.
At least one North Korean-owned vessel, the Woory Star 2, is currently registered in Panama, the monitors added. Another was sailing under a Belize flag when it foiled a U.S. Navy attempt to board and search it in 2011.
The Cuba ports of call point to a rising trade between the communist allies, highlighted last week when Panamanian authorities searching the freighter Chong Chon Gang found tons of Cuban weapons hidden under 220,000 sacks of sugar.
“The trade numbers are fuzzy but clearly there’s been more contact between the two countries in recent years,” said Michael Madden, editor of the North Korea Leadership Watch, which closely monitors the country’s politics.
Cuba has said it was sending the “obsolete” weaponry, including MiG jets and anti-aircraft missiles, to North Korea to be refurbished and returned. It has said nothing about the U.N. arms embargo in effect against North Korea since 2006.
But the Chong Chon Gang was only one of at least five North Korean ships that docked in Cuba since 2009, according to the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, which monitors international shipping reports.