An 80m (263ft) luxury vessel has been repeatedly spotted in satellite images off North Korea’s Wonsan coast from July to mid-October this year. What stands out is the 50m swimming pool along the deck, with a cluster of waterslides at one end. After sitting idle for months at a maintenance facility, it relocated in early July to waters off a strip of coastline known as the Kalma Peninsula. This is close to Wonsan, a seaside resort with a sprawling villa used by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his family.
It was not the only large vessel on the move. A handful of others were also repeatedly seen near Kim’s villa, in satellite images analysed by the BBC. The vessels are widely believed to be used by Kim and his family. Former North Korean officials, defectors and experts say it would be difficult for anyone unconnected to the regime’s leadership to own or freely use vessels of this size.
“In winter, they would keep them at the shipyard. When summer came, they would bring them out and move them to Kim Jong Un’s villa or towards Kalma, and use them for swimming and recreation,” says Ri Jong Ho. Ri was once an official at the Workers’ Party’s Office 39, which is believed to be involved in raising and managing foreign currency for the leadership. The wealth of those who sit at the top of the secretive North Korean dictatorship is just as hard to pin down as the country’s economic figures.
The United Nations and others rely on estimates to classify North Korea as one of the world’s poorest countries, with an especially large military budget that funds a sanctioned nuclear programme. Most North Koreans, according to a 2025 UN report, live under “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations” with total state control, widespread forced labour, and chronic food shortages that leave an estimated 40% of the population undernourished. But the regime has long been known to live in luxury. We don’t know the cost of the vessels seen in the satellite imagery, but comparable luxury yachts run from tens of millions to over $100m (£75m).
Kim’s much smaller, 29-metre Princess yacht was previously estimated to be worth about $7m. While vessel locations alone cannot definitively establish the family’s whereabouts, their movements – which overlap with gaps in Kim’s public appearances – point to activities that would otherwise remain out of public view. Wonsan is where Kim Jong Un spent part of his childhood with his mother, according to biographers and intelligence reports, and one expert told the BBC the city has been associated with the family since his father Kim Jong Il’s rule. A defector who served for 13 years guarding residences used by then leader Kim Jong Il – through the 1990s to the early 2000s – told the BBC the villas around Wonsan were used as a retreat by the elite.
He recalls seeing dozens of children and teens waterskiing during summer. North Korean state media rarely publishes reports about Kim being on holiday, instead framing such visits as official inspections or guidance. But defectors interviewed by the BBC appeared to be aware that the family spent holidays in Wonsan, suggesting that at least some North Koreans knew about it. North Korean state media also claims Wonsan is home to high-rise hotels, restaurants, shops, sports facilities and water parks, and can accommodate nearly 20,000 visitors.
State media and Russian outlets have published images of small groups of Russian tourists visiting the Wonsan Kalma resort, which opened in July 2025. Although developed to attract foreign visitors, the resort is also open to local tourists. A South Korean news report, citing an unnamed source, says some locals were offered four-night tour packages for around $100, a substantial sum for most North Koreans. The country’s per capita GDP – around $667 in 2024, according to the UN – is a small fraction of South Korea’s $36,227.
For the majority of North Koreans, holidays are out of reach. And while a growing middle class does exist, they might not have much time for leisure. Defectors told the BBC that workers, office employees and cooperative farmers are legally entitled to 14 days of annual leave, but this is rarely followed. Taking consecutive days off to travel is unusual.
People typically take weekend trips or travel during national holidays instead of designated “summer holidays”. Even if leave is granted, travel itself is restricted, with official permission required for people to travel outside their city or county. Moving freely is sometimes as much a luxury as the holiday itself. The BBC tracked four large vessels around Wonsan, measuring approximately 50m, 55m, 60m and 80m.
All four vessels repeatedly appeared around Kim’s Wonsan villa this year. The largest vessel showed the clearest activity, moving from the dock to the waters off the Kalma Peninsula, where it has been since July. Two of the other vessels – 50m and 55m – were repeatedly seen until the end of August around Tae and Sin islands, close to Wonsan. Satellite images also showed four smaller boats alongside the 50m vessel.
Satellite imagery expert Jeong Seong-hak said the smaller boats ferried people, fuel and supplies to the larger vessel, adding that small islands like Tae and Sin offered “secluded maritime retreats where privacy can be maintained away from public view”. The 60m vessel was repeatedly seen near Kim’s Wonsan villa until as recently as last week. Though North Korea has never publicly disclosed the vessels’ official ownership, BBC’s analysis of historical satellite imagery found a large vessel with the same distinctive characteristics in Wonsan in 2002, when Kim Jong Il ruled North Korea. Former NBA star Dennis Rodman, who visited the North in 2013, told The Sun that he had spent much of his seven-day visit with Kim Jong Un around Wonsan, where they went jet-skiing and horse riding.
He also described a 60m vessel they used as a cross between a ferry and a Disney boat. It is not clear if this is the same 60m boat pictured in the above satellite imagery. To most North Koreans, the life lived by the Kims and others who support the regime would seem not just extravagant but unimaginable. Especially because state propaganda is dedicated to presenting the “supreme leader” as a selfless man who always puts the nation first.
“Kim Jong Un is supposed to be a ‘leader of the people’,” Ri Jong Ho says, “yet he has four luxury vessels like these while ordinary people are struggling just to get one meal a day.” Why Kim Jong Un never talks about his mother – or her controversial bloodline Kim Jong Un was meant to be their only idol – then North Koreans discovered K-pop Could Kim’s teen daughter become North Korea’s next leader?
