Success for US investigators

IT fraud for North Korea: man and woman arrested

In the USA, the public prosecutor's office announced the arrest of an American woman and a Ukrainian man on Thursday. They are alleged to have helped IT employees close to North Korea to pose as Americans in order to obtain remote jobs at hundreds of US companies, the US Department of Justice said.

According to the Department, a sophisticated scheme was aimed at generating revenue for North Korea in violation of international sanctions. The defendants allegedly stole the identities of more than 60 Americans to infiltrate more than 300 U.S. companies, including Fortune 500 companies and banks. These foreign IT employees also allegedly tried to find jobs with two U.S. government agencies to gain access to internal information, but were unsuccessful.

Extradition requested
Last week, a lawsuit was filed in a federal court in Washington against the American, the Ukrainian and three other foreign nationals. The statement from the US Department of Justice now shows that the American woman was arrested on Wednesday. The Ukrainian was arrested last Tuesday by Polish authorities at the request of the United States, which is now seeking his extradition.

Five million dollars for clues
The State Department announced a reward of up to five million dollars for information about suspected co-conspirators of the accused. The head of the Justice Department's criminal division, Nicole Argentieri, said the alleged offenses would benefit the North Korean government by providing it with a source of revenue and, in some cases, proprietary information.

The indictments should now be a wake-up call for American companies and government agencies that employ remote IT workers, Argentieri added.

Foreign currency for nuclear weapons program
In an earlier statement, the State Department said that North Korea had raised at least 6.8 million dollars through schemes such as these. It said the North Koreans involved were linked to North Korea's defense industry department, which oversees the country's ballistic missile development, weapons production and research and development programs. North Korea is under UN sanctions aimed at cutting funding for its missile and nuclear weapons programs.