US says North Korea made millions from remote work scheme
A federal court in St. Louis has charged 14 North Koreans for allegedly being involved in a long-running conspiracy aimed at extorting money from American companies and funneling the money to Pyongyang’s weapons programs.
The broader scheme allegedly involves thousands of North Korean IT workers who use fake, stolen and borrowed identities from people in the United States and other countries to get jobs and work remotely at US companies.
The indictment says the defendants and others working with them collected at least $88 million (£51.5 million) for the North Korean regime over six years.
North Korea’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BBC News.
Prosecutors say the suspects worked for two North Korean-controlled companies, China-based Yanbian Silverstar, and Russia-based Volasys Silverstar.
They were among a group of 130 North Korean IT workers employed by the two companies, where they are referred to internally as “IT Warriors,” according to the US Department of Justice.
The suspects were allegedly ordered to demand salaries of $10,000 per month from US employers.
On top of the monthly wage, they also raise money for the North Korean regime by stealing valuable company information and threatening to leak it unless the employer pays an extortionate sum.
The group now faces wire fraud, money laundering, identity theft and other charges.
Aside from using stolen identities to avoid detection, prosecutors said they paid people based in the United States to receive, set up and host laptops provided by American employers.
They then instruct these US residents to install remote access software allowing them to appear to be working from the US when they are actually abroad.
Investigators believe the suspects are in North Korea, making it unlikely they will ever face justice.
However, the US State Department announced that it would offer a reward of up to $5 million to anyone who could provide more information on the suspects as well as Yanbian and Volassis.
US officials did not mention the names of the US companies targeted in the scheme.
“While we have disrupted this group and identified its leadership, this is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Ashley T. Johnson, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s St. Louis Field Office.
“The North Korean government has trained and deployed thousands of IT workers to perpetrate this same scheme against American companies every day.”