Four Americans and a Ukrainian national who aided North Korea’s information technology (IT) worker fraud involving U.S. companies pleaded guilty to their crimes, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a Nov. 14 statement.
The DOJ was also seeking forfeiture of more than $15 million in cryptocurrencies stolen and laundered by North Korean hackers. These nationwide actions aim to combat illicit revenue generated by the regime.
The North Korean government uses both IT worker fraud and crypto theft to fund their weapons programs and other priorities, violating U.S. sanctions, according to the Justice Department.
The five individuals who pleaded guilty “assisted North Korean actors with obtaining remote IT employment with U.S. companies,” the DOJ stated, adding that the facilitators “provided their own, false, or stolen identities, and hosted U.S. victim company-provided laptops at residences across the United States to create the false appearance that the IT workers were working domestically.”…
DOJ Cracks Down on North Korean Fraud, Crypto Theft
