A North Korean vessel appears to have stolen the identity of a superyacht owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich while sailing to a Chinese port, in what one expert described as a possible attempt to conceal illicit activity.

The DPRK-flagged ship began broadcasting its location in the Yellow Sea on May 6 as it sailed from near North Korea, according to the MarineTraffic tracking service, arriving two days later off the coast of Yantai, a Chinese city known as a destination for DPRK coal.

But despite openly flying the DPRK flag, the vessel flaunted other identifiers