"High-end luxury goods share key features with dual-use goods for North Korea’s weapons program: they are scarce, specialized products with high monetary value and great symbolic importance for the Kim regime," the executive summary for C4ADS' report, titled Lux & Loaded, explains. "However, unlike dual-use goods, luxury products like armored Mercedes vehicles are easily identifiable on publicly available trade records and at port." The exact origins of the S600s remain unclear. Daimler, which presently owns the Mercedes and Mercedes-Maybach brands, markets the armored Pullman Guard version of these vehicles specifically to VIPs, including government officials, and says it conducts background checks on all prospective buyers. The company has previously gone on the record to deny selling these cars, or any others, to individuals serving as fronts for North Korea.

North Korean State Television capture A screengrab from the official North Korean state media broadcast that first showed one of the new S600s earlier this year.

Part of the issue is that the cars may not actually be from-factory S600 Pullman Guards, but rather S600s that subsequently received an armor package from a third party company. In looking at the North Korean video footage from February 2019, NK Pro had pointed out some differences between the armor visible inside the door of Kim's S600 from that of a standard S600 Pullman Guard. Whatever the case, in June 2018, the cars, each in separate shipping containers, arrived at the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, according to C4ADS. A Dutch freight forwarding company, Slavenburg & Huyser B.V., then put them on a ship to Dailan, China. After arriving at the Chinese port, a Japanese trading company, Zuisyo Company, signed for the containers and had them shipped again to Osaka, Japan. While in Japan, another freight forwarding company called Mino Logistics Japan subsequently took responsibility for the containers and then sent them to Busan, South Korea, where South Korean firm Mino Logistics Company signed for them. C4ADS says it could not verify whether these two companies are related despite their nearly identical names.

C4ADS The route Kim's new S600s took to get to North Korea, according to C4ADS' investigation.

What happened after the cars arrived in Busan on Sept. 30, 2018, is the crux of the story. Reportedly, dockworkers loaded the cars onto DN5505, a Togo-flagged cargo ship belonging to Do Young Shipping Company, which has its headquarters registered in the Marshall Islands. Shipping records indicate that Zuisyo Company had been the one to formally ship the cars to Do Young by way of the other freight forwarding firms. This is when things get murky. Shortly after taking on the cars in Busan, DN5505 set sail with its stated destination being Nakhodka, Russia and estimated arrival date of Oct. 5, 2018. The ship appeared to turn off its transponder on Oct. 1 and the signal did not reappear until Oct. 19, an 18-day gap.

C4ADS A map showing the positions of DN5505 before and after its "dark voyage" with the transponder off.