A Chinese support vessel rendezvoused with a North Korean high-speed boat and cargo ships in the Yellow Sea on two occasions last month, NK Pro analysis shows, in what experts said may be an attempt to conduct illicit ship-to-ship transfers with smaller vessels that are harder to track. 

Both incidents involving the China-flagged Sulianhuo1188 tender took place in North Korea’s exclusive economic zone southwest of Cho Island, an area that U.N. sanctions monitors recently identified as a hotspot for such transfers that are a key part of Pyongyang’s sanctions-evasion strategy.

In the