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Speaker 1: The New Zealand Air Force reckons it's seen evidence of

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Speaker 1: the UN sanctions against North Korea being breached. An Air

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Speaker 1: Force PSIDON flew eleven patrols to monitor those UN sanctions. Recently,

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Speaker 1: reckons it witnessed ship to ship transfers potentially of banned

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Speaker 1: goods like oil and coal. Now Wing Commander Mark Whiteside

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Speaker 1: was the commanding officers of this mission, high Mark hi, Ever,

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Speaker 1: how many times did you guys see this happen?

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Speaker 2: So we patrolled on eleven separate occasions up into the region,

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Speaker 2: and on four occasions we did detect what we call

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Speaker 2: ship to ship transfers on the high Sea that could

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Speaker 2: be in support of evasion sanctions.

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Speaker 1: Could you see from all the way up there whether

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Speaker 1: it was oil or coal or whatever it was?

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Speaker 2: Yes, certainly. So we target in particular the commercial oiling

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Speaker 2: ships or any ships that carry refined petroleum, because that

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Speaker 2: is the sanctions that we're up there to detect. So

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Speaker 2: with our imagery will certainly be able to see if

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Speaker 2: two vessels are close together, it's very very obvious ones

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Speaker 2: they've rafted up on the high seat, and we'll get

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Speaker 2: close enough to take imagery and collect evidence to the

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Speaker 2: point that you can see the hoses between the two vessels,

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Speaker 2: so they're definitely transferring and refined controllum.

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Speaker 1: Right, okay, and so how long does the transfer take?

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Speaker 2: I'm not Aaron a Surrey. We can say is that

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Speaker 2: as soon as that we've detected any type of transfer

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Speaker 2: and that activity is occurring, and we have to piece

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Speaker 2: together a whole lot of other information that is seen

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Speaker 2: the draft state of the vessels before and after to

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Speaker 2: see how much I gets deeper in the ocean they

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Speaker 2: sit versus before any transfers. So really it relies on

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Speaker 2: a whole lot of information rather than staying there and

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Speaker 2: observing the whole activity from start to finish.

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Speaker 1: How do you know for sure that one of the

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Speaker 1: vessels is a North Korean vessel?

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Speaker 2: There's many things we can do when we're connecting surveillance

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Speaker 2: to our team will look for what flag it is flying,

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Speaker 2: international maritime organization number, where it's registered, whether it's displaying this,

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Speaker 2: and whether that's different to what's registered. There's a whole

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Speaker 2: host of ways that people trying to evade sanctions behavior

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Speaker 2: that they will take that that is quite suspicious from

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Speaker 2: all of that and try and try and piece that together.

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Speaker 2: It's not so much, you know, looking for any one

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Speaker 2: particular piece of information.

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Speaker 1: You say that that these vessels are avoiding or are

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Speaker 1: adopting all the players are adopting tactics to avoid being spotted.

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Speaker 1: I'm assuming that's things like flying perhaps an incorrect flag.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's correct. Then they can paint over their

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Speaker 2: original names, change their names many times. Does it changes ownership?

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Speaker 2: They can report in correct information on what's called AIS

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Speaker 2: or the automatic identification system that commercial ships are required

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Speaker 2: to transmit on, or they can completely turn that off,

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Speaker 2: which is against all kind of international law. Many different

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Speaker 2: other activities, including the the route are taking for navigation,

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Speaker 2: and the time of day and where they're going. All

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Speaker 2: sorts of that activity needs to be pieced together.

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Speaker 1: Right, And which is the other ship? The other ship?

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Speaker 1: Where is it coming from?

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Speaker 2: Many different places? So, and we'll keep looking for different

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Speaker 2: areas of interest or hotspots where we where we know

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Speaker 2: this happens. But it can come from from the south

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Speaker 2: of North Korea, it can come from the east. It's

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Speaker 2: it's wherever they can get it from.

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Speaker 1: So what I'm meaning is, basically I'm trying to I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to ask you which is the country that's preaching

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Speaker 1: the sanctions.

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Speaker 2: Here's that's so that's hard for us to tell as

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Speaker 2: a maritime surveillance aircraft. There can be no flag at

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Speaker 2: all on some of these vessels. So that's why we

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Speaker 2: pass this information onto the Enforcement Coordination Cell that will

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Speaker 2: piece all that together and try and work on that

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Speaker 2: big picture.

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Speaker 1: Right, what happens now with the information you have?

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Speaker 2: So we pass all that information onto that Enforcement Coordination Cell,

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Speaker 2: which is a multi national organization that does piece together

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Speaker 2: every individual nation's kind of surveillance activities and tries to

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Speaker 2: put that big picture together. It's passed on and back

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Speaker 2: to the UN Security Council, which is the entity that

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Speaker 2: sets these resolutions in the first place, and then other

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Speaker 2: action can occur as well. If there is like a

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Speaker 2: flag state that's been identified, then they can pass that

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Speaker 2: information directly to that state to take their own action.

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Speaker 1: If I'm assuming that the flag state is China, would

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Speaker 1: I be wrong?

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Speaker 2: No? I can't. I honestly can't answer that one, because

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Speaker 2: we literally don't deal with the e SEC side of it.

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Speaker 2: We only deal with what we see out there, and

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Speaker 2: from what we saw, there were no flag states. They

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Speaker 2: hide themselves particularly well.

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Speaker 1: Mark Thank you is fascinating stuff. Thanks for talking us

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Speaker 1: through it. That's Mark Whiteside Win Commander Mark's Whiteside, Royal

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Speaker 1: New Zealand Air Force.

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