North Korean leader Kim Jong-un seems to have added a new luxury car to his collection of premium rides, raising doubts about the effectiveness of stringent sanctions banning export of luxury items to the country. The latest model of Mercedes-Benz SUV was seen rolling out of Mr Kim’s armoured train during his visit to flood-hit areas, Yonhap news agency reported. Arriving in Uiju county in North Phyongan province on 9 August, Mr Kim addressed the public from inside a carriage of his train.
Pictures shared by North Korean media showed him standing near a Mercedes Maybach GLS 600, the top model of the car’s facelifted version launched in South Korea in April. The car is priced between $175,500 (£137,080) and $227,400 (£1,77,618) in America and over £108,000 in the UK. The North Korean leader is known to have Mercedes-Maybach S600 Guard, fifth-generation US-made Cadillac Escalade, Rolls Royce Phantom and Lexus armoured sedan vehicles in his car collection.
North Korea is banned from procuring luxury goods under a broader set of international sanctions aimed at containing the country’s nuclear weapons programme. The sanctions are supposedly meant to limit the resources available to the North Korean government, particularly those that could be used to develop weapons of mass destruction. The sanctions were first imposed in 2006 after the country conducted its first nuclear test.
Mr Kim’s use of foreign cars goes against his government’s policy of discouraging foreign influence through music, art, news and films on the public. Authorities in the country have previously cracked down on K-pop music and films from rival South Korea. According to the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, which tracks smuggling networks, luxury foreign cars reach North Korea through port transfers, secret high-seas shipping and shadowy front companies.
In a report, the centre said 90 countries served as the source of luxury goods to North Korea from 2015 to 2017. This year, Russian leader Vladimir Putin gifted two cars to the North Korean leader as their countries deepened ties. In February, Mr Putin sent Mr Kim an Aurus Senat limousine , which he had shown him when they met for a summit in Russia in September.
In June, Mr Putin gifted another Russian-made Aurus Senat, retro-styled after the Soviet-era ZIL limousine, which the Russian leader himself uses as his official presidential car, during his state visit to North Korea..
