The Justice Department indicts two Americans in North Korean IT worker fraud
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
The U.S. Justice Department released indictments against five people Thursday in connection with a years-long North Korean IT worker scheme.
Why it matters: The indictments are against a mix of people from North Korea, Mexico and the U.S. — highlighting just how global North Korea's operations have become.
Zoom in: The Justice Department accused the five people of running an operation from April 2018 to August 2024 to trick companies into hiring North Korean IT workers.
- In this one scheme, the organizers secured jobs at at least 64 U.S. companies, prosecutors said.
- Payments from 10 of those companies generated at least $866,255 in revenue. The FBI and its partners at the State and Treasury departments have said that these workers have been known to earn up to $300,000 each year from just one job.
- North Korean workers participate in the scam as a way of circumventing sanctions that prohibit U.S. companies from hiring them. The salaries are then used to help fund the country's missile program.
How it worked: The defendants are accused of stealing legitimate American identities and creating fake ID documents, like a passport tied to an actual U.S. citizen, when applying to these remote jobs at U.S. companies.
- Once the North Korean workers secured a job at the U.S. company, prosecutors said, they would ship their company-issued laptops to the two U.S.-based defendants' residences in New York and North Carolina to avoid raising suspicion.
- Those two defendants, Erick Ntekereze Prince and Emanuel Ashtor, would download unauthorized remote access software onto those laptops so the North Korean worker could do their job.
- Prince and Ashtor also are charged with helping to launder salary payments from the remote jobs back to North Korea.
The intrigue: Per the indictment, one of the charged North Korean operators got permission from another defendant, Pedro Ernesto Alonso De Los Reyes, to use his identity to score a job at a U.S. IT company working on its mobile platform.
- That operator also got permission to list Prince's address in New York as his primary residence with the company.
Catch up quick: Last year, prosecutors also charged an Arizona woman and four other people who helped North Korean workers get jobs at more than 300 U.S. companies.
- Security training firm KnowBe4 also said last summer it was the victim of one of these schemes.
What we're watching: Three of the five people indicted have already been arrested.
