Back in the 1970s, North Korea ordered 1,000 vehicles from Swedish automaker Volvo. To this day, the isolated state still hasn’t paid up for them, and it’s become known as the greatest car theft in history.
This is one of those viral history stories that comes back every now and then, similar to Russia’s white Coca-Cola. This time around, much of the virality can be traced to this tweet from @historyinmemes.
In the 1970s, North Korea ordered 1,000 Volvo cars from Sweden. The cars were shipped & delivered but North Korea just didn’t bother paying & ignored the invoice. Till this day the bill remains unpaid making it the largest car theft in history. pic.twitter.com/SYbubt8due
— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) February 1, 2023
And it seems to hold up. Back in 2017, NPR covered the story by offering an explainer on the deal and the car involved, the Volvo 144. This was a sedan without much flare to it, the kind of car that you’d imagine if you were just thinking of ‘car’. There was also some heavy mining machinery involved in the deal, with Sweden sending over about $70 million worth of products. In 1975, Sweden became the first country to establish an embassy in North Korea.
The cars were driving on North Korean roads during the 80s, as recounted by a Washington Post reporter who went to the nation at the time. So few cars populated North Korean highways that single cars often had the roads to themselves.
Anyway, as goods and products from the west began to be imported to North Korea, it became clear to the Swedish embassy that the numbers weren’t adding up. Deadlines passed and mass trade was halted.
This brings us to today. According to Auto Evolution, Sweden reminds North Korea twice every year of the payments owed to the country, however, payments from Sweden to Volvo have long been finalised. Apparently, North Korea owes $US314 million, or $443,700,212 in Aussie Dollars.
And Sweden’s been pretty tongue-in-cheek about it, to be honest. The below tweet is from the official Swedish embassy in North Korea back in 2016.
Still going strong. One of the Volvo’s from yr 1974 still unpaid for by DPRK. Running as taxi in Chongjin w almost half million km on odo! pic.twitter.com/2FaMpnPow7
— Sweden in Pyongyang (@SwedenDPRK) October 21, 2016
Will North Korea ever pay off the debt? Probably not. Is this an exceptionally weird bit of history? Totally.
Gizmodo Australia has reached out to the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to get clarification on the debt and we will update this story when we get a response.