The Ministry of Justice announced Criminal accusations on North Korea on Monday to finance its arms program thanks to the wages of remote information technology workers involuntarily employed by American companies.
The accusations have occurred that law enforcement officials described as a national operation which has also led to the seizure of financial accounts, websites and laptops that have been used to carry out fraud.
Separate cases in Georgia and Massachusetts Represent the latest efforts of the Ministry of Justice to face a persistent threat which, according to officials, generates enormous income for the North Korean government and offers in some cases workers access to sensitive data and owners of American companies that hire them.
The program involved thousands of workers who, armed with stolen or false identities, were sent by the North Korean government to find work as distant computer workers in American companies, including fortune companies 500. Companies have been due to believe that the workers they hired were based in the United States when many were in fact stationed in North Korea or China, Paid by the victims companies have been transferred to accounts controlled by co-conspirators affiliated to North Korea, according to the prosecutors.
District of the US District Court of Massachusetts
On Monday, American prosecutors announced the arrest of the National Zhenxing “Danny” Wang from New Jersey. A five accounts Describes a “multi-year fraud program of Wang and its co-conspirators to obtain a distance computer work with American companies that have generated more than $ 5 million in revenues”, the Ministry of Justice said.
The indictment also charges six Chinese nationals and two Taiwanese nationals for their roles in the program.
“These regimes target and steal from American companies and are designed to escape sanctions and finance the illicit programs of the North Korean regime, including its arms programs,” said Deputy Prosecutor John Eisenberg, head of the national security division of the Ministry of Justice, said in a press release.
In a case exposed Monday before the Federal Massachusetts court, the Ministry of Justice said that it had arrested an American national and accused more than half a dozen Chinese and Taiwanese citizens for their alleged roles in elaborate fraud who, according to prosecutors, produced several million dollars in revenues and affected dozens of companies.
The conspiracy, according to court documents, involved the recording of financial accounts to receive the product and the creation of screens and false websites to give the impression that distant workers were associated with legitimate companies. Catalysts in the United States have facilitated access to the computer remotely of workers, encouraging companies to believe that workers connected from American sites.
The Ministry of Justice has not identified the busy companies, but said that some of the fraudulent workers had been able to access and steal information related to sensitive military technology.
The case filed in Georgia invoices to four North Korean IT workers with the flight of virtual currency worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to their employers. The defendants remain in freedom.
The Ministry of Justice has filed similar prosecution in recent years, and has created an initiative to disrupt the threat.
The Ministry of Justice has charged other people living in the United States of similar conduct linked to the North Korean government.
Last December, a Chinese national living in California was billed After pretending to be bought and exported firearms and ammunition to North Korea towards North Korean agents which channeled it $ 2 million to buy the equipment.
In May 2024, federal prosecutors accused A woman in Arizona of carrying out a program to help North Korean IT workers illegally obtaining a distance from American companies. The group would have used the identity of more than 60 people who lived in the United States to generate nearly $ 7 million for the North Korean government of more than 300 American companies.