U.S. authorities issued indictments against five individuals, allegedly linked to an illicit North Korean IT operation that tricked various American firms into remote employment deals over numerous years.
The Department of Justice (DoJ) divulged indictments against North Korean natives Jin Sung-Il and Pak Jin-Song; Mexican national Pedro Ernesto Alonso De Los Reyes, and US citizens Erick Ntekereze Prince and Emanuel Ashtor, on Thursday.
FBI apprehended Ntekereze and Ashtor, with Ashtor’s North Carolina residence revealing a “laptop farm,” misleading organizations into presuming they had U.S.-based employees. A U.S. authorized warrant also led to Alonso’s capture in the Netherlands.
Ntekereze and Ashtor are accused of setting up remote access software, such as Anydesk and TeamViewer, on enterprise-supplied devices, enabling the North Koreans to mask their locations. Allegedly, they also supplied Jin and Pak with fraudulent identity documents, including U.S. passports and bank accounts.
The indictment asserts that the accused secured employment from a minimum of 64 U.S. organizations from April 2018 to August 2024, earning at least $866,255 from ten firms, mostly laundered through a Chinese account.
Notably, this prosecution follows the Treasury Department’s sanctions on two people and four groups supposedly involved in comparable activities. The FBI warned about an upswing in malevolent activities from North Korean IT workers, such as cyber fraud and proprietary data theft.
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