The Justice Department on Thursday announced the arrest of three people in a complex stolen identification scheme that officials say generates enormous revenues for the North Korean government, including its weapons program.
The scheme involves thousands of North Korean IT workers, who prosecutors say were sent by the government to live abroad, and who rely on the stolen identities of Americans to get remote work at US-based Fortune 500 companies, jobs that give them access to companies. Sensitive. Statements and profitable checks.
The fraud is a way for North Korea, which is heavily sanctioned and isolated from the US financial system, to take advantage of a “toxic mix” of converging factors, including a shortage of high-tech workers in the US and the spread of remote work. Marshall Miller, the Justice Department's chief deputy prosecutor, said in an interview.
The Justice Department says these cases are part of a broader strategy to not only prosecute individuals who enable fraud but also to build partnerships with other countries and warn private sector companies that they need to be vigilant about the people they employ. FBI and Justice Department officials launched an initiative in March, and last year announced the seizure of website domains used by North Korean IT workers.
“Frequently, compliance programs at American companies and organizations are on the front lines of protecting our national security,” “Corporate compliance and national security are now intertwined like never before.”
The Justice Department says the conspiracy affected more than 300 companies – including an upscale retail chain and a “leading Silicon Valley technology company” – and generated more than $6.8 million in revenue for workers who reside outside the United States, including in China and Russia. .
Among the three people arrested is an Arizona woman, Christina Marie Chapman, who prosecutors say facilitated the scheme by helping workers obtain and verify stolen identities, and receiving laptops from U.S. companies that she believed were sending the devices to employees. Legal and help workers communicate remotely. To the company.
According to the indictment, Chapman ran more than one “laptop farm” where American companies sent computers and salaries to IT workers who didn't realize they were abroad.
At Chapman's laptop farms, she allegedly connected overseas IT workers who logged in remotely to company networks so that the logins appeared to be coming from the United States. She also allegedly received salaries of overseas IT workers at her home, forged signatures of beneficiaries to transfer them abroad and enriched herself by charging monthly fees.
Other defendants include a Ukrainian man, Oleksandr Didenko, who prosecutors say created fake accounts on job search platforms and was arrested in Poland last week, and a Vietnamese national, Minh Phuong Phuong, who was arrested Thursday in Maryland on charges of obtaining… Get jobs fraudulently. A job at a US company was actually performed by remote workers posing as him and residing abroad.
It was not immediately clear whether any of the three had lawyers.
Separately, the State Department said it was offering a reward for information about some IT workers in North Korea who officials say received assistance from Chapman.
The FBI, which conducted the investigation, issued a public service announcement warning companies about the scheme, encouraging them to implement identity verification standards throughout the hiring process and to educate human resources staff and hiring managers about the threat.