How does North Korea, a small country sanctioned and surveilled by pretty much everyone in the West, continue to rake in billions from arms deals?

The folks over at  Arms Control Wonk recently got their hands on the Report to the Security Council from the Panel of Experts established Pursuant to Resolution 1874. It's long and reads like the UN document it is (i.e. impeccably soporific) but provides exceptional insight into how the DPRK continues to deal:

On 11 December 2009, Government of Thailand authorities interdicted an aircraft, Ilyushin-76, carrying 35 tons of arms and related materiel. The interdicted cargo was discovered aboard a chartered aircraft operated by Air West Company, which departed from Sunan Airport in Pyongyang, DPRK, and landed at Don Mueang Airport in Bangkok to refuel.33 The airway bill covering the shipment had been issued by Air Koryo, national carrier of the DPRK. It indicated the cargo as 145 crates of “mechanical parts.” However, the Thai inspection of the cargo revealed that the content consisted of some 35 tons of conventional arms and munitions including 240mm rockets, RPG-7s, TBG-7s and MANPADS surface-to-air missiles. It was also established that the shipper was Korea Mechanical Industry Co.Ltd, a DPRK entity, and that the consignee was Top Energy Institute located in Iran. A puzzling factor in this case is the numerous flight plans filed for the outbound and projected return route of the aircraft. This has raised suspicions concerning the nature of the transaction and ultimate destination of the cargo and should entail further inquiry. The aircraft used in this illicit trade is owned by a company in the United Arab Emirates and registered in the Republic of Georgia as 4LAWA. It was leased to SP Trading Limited, a shell company registered in New Zealand, and then chartered to Union Top Management Ltd (UTM), another shell  company registered in Hong Kong.

Dizzying no?

Read more after the jump ---->

In February 2010, the Panel of Experts was apprised of the discovery and seizure of a shipment of spare parts destined to refurbish T54/T55 military tanks and other military goods located in the Republic of Congo. The shipment was interdicted by the South African Government in the Port of Durban on route to Pointe Noire, Republic of Congo. The cargo had its origin in the DPRK and was forward to Dalian, China where it was loaded aboard the UK flagged vessel CGM Musca, owned by the French company CMA CGM, on 20 October 2009. A large quantity of rice grains packed in sacks lined the containers. The shipper was subsequently identified as Machinery Exp. and Imp. Corp. in the DPRK. After leaving Dalian, China, the cargo was offloaded in Port Klang, Malaysia and transferred to the Westerhever, a ship flying the Liberia flag chartered by Delmas Shipping, a subsidiary of CMA CGM. The shipping documents listed the contents of the containers only as “spare parts of bulldozer.”

And these were the ones that were caught.