- Japanese police raided a car dealership suspected of trying to smuggle a Lexus into North Korea.
- Kim Jong Un is a fan of luxury cars and has recently been spotted in a Lexus and a Maybach.
- International sanctions ban importing luxury cars into North Korea.
Police raided a used-car dealership in Chiba, Japan, suspecting it of trying to illegally smuggle a Lexus to North Korea.
The Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun was the first to report the raid, which took place last Thursday.
Officers were seeking evidence for alleged breaches of customs regulations, the South Korean newspaper Korea JoongAng Daily reported. International sanctions prohibit importing luxury cars to North Korea.
According to Korea JoongAng Daily, police believe the dealership tried to smuggle a Lexus into North Korea via Bangladesh, falsely declaring Singapore as the final destination.
An expert on North Korea's ruling family told the Hong-Kong-based South China Morning Post that the likely recipient of the car was Kim Jong Un.
"Kim is known to be a big fan of expensive cars – he has been seen with Mercedes, Rolls-Royce, and others," Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor at Tokyo's Waseda University, told the SCMP.
According to the US-based NK News, Kim was last month seen using a luxury Maybach and several Lexus SUVs during a visit to North Korea's eastern coast. He has been sighted in Lexus LX SUVs over the years, the outlet said.
NK News said it was unclear how and when the vehicles reached North Korea; but that doing so would likely violate sanctions.
Under United Nations resolutions, the export of expensive cars and other high-end items to North Korea is banned.
The UN Security Council adopted several major sanctions resolutions on North Korea in 2006, seeking to ban the sale of luxury goods to punish it for its nuclear program.
"It is obvious he wants these luxury vehicles to show off his prestige and importance," Shigemura told the SCMP. "At a very basic level, it is a status symbol."
Robert Dujarric, co-director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at the Tokyo campus of Temple University, told the SCMP that it is "relatively easy" to get a luxury car into North Korea.
"It may be a luxury car, but the world's intelligence agencies have better things to do than try to halt cars from being delivered to Pyongyang," Dujarric said, per the SCMP.
Instead, agencies would likely focus on blocking military equipment.
Dujarric said it would be "simple" to buy a car in Europe or Asia, ship it to a third country with lax regulation, then transport it to North Korea.
The North Korean embassy in London did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
