Over 800 Chinese vessels caught Pacific flying squid and other marine resources in North Korean waters last year, likely in violation of U.N. sanctions on foreign fishing adopted following Pyongyang's testing of ballistic missiles, according to officials of organizations looking into the issue.
The discovery by Global Fishing Watch and the Outlaw Ocean Project, using satellite data, also suggests that overfishing in the waters has caused a sharp fall in squid catch in neighboring Japan.
Global Fishing Watch, an ocean conservation nonprofit group co-founded by Google LLC, which released the outcome of the probe last week, also believes that vessels from China have been pushing North Korean wooden boats to fish far off, resulting in more than 100 of them being washed ashore in Japan every year as "ghost boats."