North Korea

tracked under Shadow ▸ Shadow fleets & evasion

state of play · Shadow

Ukraine struck Wildberries e-commerce warehouses in the St. Petersburg region for at least the fifth time in a week on July 23-24, citing the platform's documented role as a marketplace for FPV drone components, attack-drone parts, and military equipment sold to Russian armed forces in violation of international sanctions; Russian authorities have officially designated the strikes "terrorist attacks," underscoring the legal and political stakes of targeting a consumer platform. The Wildberries case is the clearest documented instance in the current conflict of a civilian e-commerce platform functioning as part of a military supply chain.

Nigeria's military and police rescued 308 people abducted from Kwara and Niger states on August 5, in what President Tinubu's office called the largest single-day rescue operation in Nigerian security history; Tinubu directed agencies to intensify early-warning and community intelligence systems. The operation reflects the scale of kidnapping networks operating across Nigeria's north-west, where bandit groups have been operating without formal ideological affiliation but with organised logistics.

Enforcement against Russia's shadow fleet is shifting from paper to the water: UK forces boarded a sanctioned tanker in the Channel and designated 27 more vessels plus insurers, under new interdiction powers. Physically seizing ships raises Russia's export costs and widens the discount on its crude, and reportedly diverted other tankers. Watch: whether other states adopt shadow-fleet interdiction; how the fleet reroutes in response; whether Western governments issue formal secondary sanctions against Wildberries for enabling drone sales; whether Russia restricts the platform's operating licence as political cover.

North Korea's state-directed system for funding its weapons programs by smuggling oil and coal and stealing cryptocurrency outside the international sanctions order.

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Crypto laundering

Cryptocurrency rails used globally to launder illicit proceeds, linking ransomware gangs, North Korean hackers, and Russian exchanges in a US$82 billion shadow financial system.

·4 takes ·Jul 3

North Korea's oil and coal shadow fleet runs on as the MSMT replaces the UN panel

Ship-to-ship transfers and AIS-spoofing tankers keep breaching the petroleum cap a vetoed UN body once policed

What They're Not Saying ·9 takes ·Jun 25

North Korea's Lazarus crypto theft tops $2bn as Treasury hits IT-worker launderers

Pyongyang's hackers drove 76% of 2026 crypto-hack value while OFAC and DOJ pursued the fake-employee revenue machine

Whose Money ·13 takes ·Jun 25

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