This is the second part of a two-part series by Andrei Lankov on North Korean ‘ghost ships’. Read part one here.

The year 2018 was marked by a dramatic increase in the number of discoveries of so-called North Korean “ghost ships” on the Japanese coast. 

In most cases these ships are abandoned at sea by their crew, but in some cases after an engine failure they are carried to the costs of Japan by winds and currents and end up there, often with dead or emaciated fishermen aboard.

It is often claimed or suspected that the dramatic increase in the number