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Op NEON - CAF Helps Enforce N.Korea Sanctions

Eye In The Sky

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I'm far from an expert, but yeah, the general area looks pretty busy to me (source)...
View attachment 66832

Now add in all the contacts not reporting on AIS and....then go find 2 or 3 boats that are working hard to NOT be found....

STSs (shit to ship transfers); this is also how many fishing fleets in the area operate - floating gas / bait stations, the fishers come alongside, take on stuff/offload stuff and go back to work. "finding a needle in a stack of needles where some needles are doing what you're looking for, but also NOT doing what you're looking for at the same time".
 
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SeaKingTacco

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Hah, nice.

And yeah- maritime interdiction of the cargo is pretty key when it can be achieved. The money trail is difficult to detect, harder to interdict.
True, but sometimes the pictures provide the proof that allows investigators to unravel the money trail. I will be deliberately vague with this anecdote, but the crew I was on once managed to pull off a very difficult imagery grab that literally unravelled a very large, internationally funded smuggling ring. Our photos were the smoking gun.
 

Colin Parkinson

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Hah, nice.

And yeah- maritime interdiction of the cargo is pretty key when it can be achieved. The money trail is difficult to detect, harder to interdict.
I like how some nations make a big demonstration sinking or blowing up seized ships.
 

brihard

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True, but sometimes the pictures provide the proof that allows investigators to unravel the money trail. I will be deliberately vague with this anecdote, but the crew I was on once managed to pull off a very difficult imagery grab that literally unravelled a very large, internationally funded smuggling ring. Our photos were the smoking gun.
That's awesome. They run most of their banking through sympathetic Chinese banks, and obfuscate the money through Chinese or other foreign trading companies. The weak spot is the correspondent US banks that let them do US dollar transactions, since many companies will only deal in $USD - but getting the proof of that can be hard. It's the use of US banks that brings them within American sanctions.

Canada has its own sanctions, both our own unilateral ones, and as part of the broader U.N. sanctions regime. Like any of these sanctions regimes, proving a Canadian nexus to the point of being able to prosecute looks like it's pretty hard, given how rarely we hear anything about it.
 

SeaKingTacco

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That's awesome. They run most of their banking through sympathetic Chinese banks, and obfuscate the money through Chinese or other foreign trading companies. The weak spot is the correspondent US banks that let them do US dollar transactions, since many companies will only deal in $USD - but getting the proof of that can be hard. It's the use of US banks that brings them within American sanctions.

Canada has its own sanctions, both our own unilateral ones, and as part of the broader U.N. sanctions regime. Like any of these sanctions regimes, proving a Canadian nexus to the point of being able to prosecute looks like it's pretty hard, given how rarely we hear anything about it.
While some of the folks implicated by our photos might have seen the inside of a courtroom, sometimes the goals are a little larger…
 

brihard

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While some of the folks implicated by our photos might have seen the inside of a courtroom, sometimes the goals are a little larger…
Yup. I of course have a professional bias, but I recognize that the courtroom is generally not the biggest tent in the circus for this stuff, and that the bigger intelligence picture to fuel further interdiction efforts is generally going to be more significant in achieving the policy objective.
 

Eye In The Sky

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Aside from all this "UNSCR enforcement" stuff :D....it's a great deployment and has some unique opportunity with it; once-in-a-lifetime for me was....Remembrance Day at Asan Beach (Guam), visiting Hacksaw Ridge and standing at Desmond Doss Point. Also managed to score a few days/nights in the Sinjuku district and see parts of northern Japan.

Wish I was on the crew going! But....I'll just keep doing this fun DLN stuff...
 

Eye In The Sky

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So, really this is “ops normal” for at least 4 years now.

From earlier this year:

From 4 years ago (when there was no NEON and it was all PROJECTION); I was on this crew and can vouch that the intercepts happened, they were close and “non-standard voice procedures” were used.


If it is so dangerous, why aren’t the MPA flying with escorts? The same story repeats itself - MPA intercepted by Chinese fighters in international airspace. Countries that own the MPAs put stories out about the danger.

And change not one single thing in the way the op is executed.

If there is a real danger to crews and planes, put escorts up with them.
 

MilEME09

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So, really this is “ops normal” for at least 4 years now.

From earlier this year:

From 4 years ago (when there was no NEON and it was all PROJECTION); I was on this crew and can vouch that the intercepts happened, they were close and “non-standard voice procedures” were used.


If it is so dangerous, why aren’t the MPA flying with escorts? The same story repeats itself - MPA intercepted by Chinese fighters in international airspace. Countries that own the MPAs put stories out about the danger.

And change not one single thing in the way the op is executed.

If there is a real danger to crews and planes, put escorts up with them.
We don't just whip out our F-18s when ever we want around here ;)
 

Humphrey Bogart

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I think we need truly honest recruiting materials, and to show the fighter pilots in their adult diapers.
Some would call the space between the 60th parallel and the North Pole, "Piss Jug Alley" 😁

jugs GIF
 
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