In violation of U.S. sanctions, the Department of Justice accused 14 North Korean nationals of plotting to use phony identities to obtain IT employment with American corporations and syphon off money back to their homeland.
The conspiracy allegedly made at least $88 million between April 2017 and March 2023, according to the indictment, which was submitted to a federal court in Missouri on Wednesday.
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The charges against the 14 defendants include conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering, identity theft, and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Aggravated identity theft is another charge against eight of the conspirators.
If found guilty, the conspirators could each spend up to 27 years behind bars, according to the DOJ. The FBI has labeled all 14 as Wanted.
According to the DOJ, they sometimes increased their profits by obtaining confidential firm data and pressuring companies to pay extortion to keep it secret.
Prosecutors claimed the conspirators used stolen American identities to apply for jobs in order to conceal their identities from U.S. companies. In order to deceive potential employers, they also allegedly registered domain names and created phony websites, as well as hired Americans to participate virtually in work meetings and job interviews under false pretenses.
According to a news release from the DOJ, some of the websites ought to have raised questions about the candidates.
For example, the authorities said that some of the websites featured jumbled gibberish, such as “There is no one who loves pain because it is pain, pursues it, and wants to gain it.”
The conspirators allegedly worked for Yanbian Silverstar and Volasys Silverstar, two North Korean-controlled businesses with headquarters in China and Russia, respectively. Both businesses have previously been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department.
A reward of up to $5 million is being offered by the State Department on Thursday for information regarding the conspirators and other people connected to the two North Korean front firms.
At least 130 people have been engaged by the two businesses, but the DOJ stated that many more are pursuing the same objective of evading sanctions in order to make money for the nation’s ruling government.
Ashley Johnson, special agent in charge of the FBI’s St. Louis field office, described the case that was revealed Thursday as “just the tip of the iceberg.”
According to Johnson, the North Korean government has educated and sent out thousands of IT professionals to carry out the same scam against American businesses on a daily basis.
Using an acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco stated in the news release that the North Korean government encourages IT workers to obtain jobs through fraud, steal confidential data from American businesses, and syphon money back to the DPRK in order to support its cruel regime.
According to Monaco, the indictment of 14 North Korean citizens reveals their purported evasion of sanctions and should serve as a warning to businesses worldwide to be vigilant against this nefarious DPRK regime conduct.
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