Foreign vessels known to smuggle oil to North Korea carried out ship-to-ship transfers outside Nampho and off the country’s west coast starting in 2021, an upcoming U.N. report states, as an apparent shift in the country’s maritime operations creates new hotspots for illicit activity.

The uptick in ship-to-ship transfers in the area, which sits just west of the North Korean port city of Nampho, appears to be a relatively recent response to Pyongyang’s stringent COVID-19 border controls that have made it impossible for foreign vessels to dock.

According to a draft U