This week, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted 14 North Koreans over a sophisticated scheme to defraud American companies through identity theft, wire fraud, money laundering, and extortion, generating an estimated $88 million over six years.
The scheme involved North Korean IT workers assuming false U.S. identities to secure remote IT positions, with the proceeds funneled back to support North Korea’s government, including its nuclear weapons program. The indictment, unsealed on Thursday, explains how these individuals — working under the guise of employees for two North Korean-controlled entities, Yanbian Silverstar in China and Volasys Silverstar in Russia — infiltrated U.S. companies.
By using stolen identities, they gained employment, accessed sensitive corporate data, and extorted payments by threatening to leak proprietary information. One case involved an employer who suffered damages in hundreds of thousands of dollars after refusing to meet an extortion demand, leading to the public release of their proprietary information.
The FBI called this operation “just the tip of the iceberg,” with thousands more North Korean IT workers potentially involved in similar schemes worldwide.
