WASHINGTON: An Arizona woman took part in a plot to help North Korean IT professionals impersonate Americans in order to apply for remote jobs at American businesses, according to US authorities.
More than 300 US businesses, including Fortune 500 organizations and banks, were infiltrated as part of a plot to steal money for North Korea despite international sanctions, according to the US Department of Justice (DoJ).
Federal prosecutors charged Chapman, three employees and Oleksandr Didenko, a 27-year-old Ukrainian, in connection with the scheme.
The manager of the three workers is listed as an uncharged co-conspirator. The manager went by the identities of Zhonghua and Venechor S.
These individuals engaged in a scheme that allowed Han, Jin and Xu to obtain illegal remote work for US companies using false identities belonging to more than 60 real US persons. The illegal plan generated at least $6.8 million for the DPRK, the State Department said.
The scheme affected more than 300 U.S. companies, caused false information to be provided to the Department of Homeland Security on more than 100 occasions, and created false tax liabilities for more than 35 U.S. persons, the Justice Department said.
A reward of up to $5 million was offered by the US government through the State Department’s Rewards for Justice programme for information about the effort, specifically involving three North Koreans going by the names Jiho Han, Chunji Jin, and Haoran Xu, as well as their manager, Zhonghua.
North Koreans arrested in the United States can face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
According to the Justice Department, Didenko was accused of fabricating accounts on American IT job search engines and selling them to foreign IT professionals, some of whom he believed to be North Korean. It said Chapman worked with foreign IT specialists who employed the services of Didenko.
According to the statement, the Justice Department confiscated Didenko’s website, upworksell.com, on Thursday.
