North Korea has been covertly stealing American remote work jobs under false identities in order to enrich the cash-strapped hermit kingdom, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
North Korean citizens operating under false names regularly employ “laptop farms” in order to work remote jobs with the assistance of U.S. proxies, with one farm netting an estimated $17.1 million for the foreign nationals from more than 300 American companies, federal prosecutors told the WSJ. North Korean scam artists account for a significant portion of the communist nation’s economy, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars a year, FBI Section Chief Gregory Austin told the WSJ.
“These DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] IT workers are absolutely able to hold down jobs that pay in the low six figures in U.S. companies, and sometimes they can hold multiple of these jobs,” Austin told the WSJ.
Christina Chapman, 50, was the target of an FBI investigation where she operated a laptop farm and broadcast a false impression of her business to her over 100,000 TikTok followers, according to the WSJ. The FBI raided her farm in October 2023, finding over 90 computers in their search.
Chapman pleaded guilty to wire fraud, identity theft and money laundering charges, serving a maximum of nine years in prison for her crimes, the WSJ reported. Cybersecurity company CrowdStrike has identified at least 150 cases similar to Chapman’s in at least eight different states.
The hackers will send out thousands of applications to remote work opportunities on popular platforms such as LinkedIn and even use AI to alter their appearance for job interviews, according to the WSJ. The IT workers reportedly will provide their services to almost any industry that utilizes remote work.
Remote work jobs grew an astonishing 159% over the last 12 years, accelerated in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
North Korea has resorted to underhanded tactics to generate income for the nation amid oppressive international sanctions, with DPRK operatives stealing more than $6 billion of cryptocurrency over the past decade.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screen Capture/CSPAN)
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