The Justice Department (DOJ) has charged four North Koreans in a five-count indictment with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. The charges relate to their participation in a fraudulent scheme involving remote IT employment and the theft and laundering of approximately $900,000 in crypto assets.
According to a recent press release, Kim Kwang Jin, Kang Tae Bok, Jong Pong Ju, and Chang Nam Il pretended to be regular remote IT workers, using stolen identification to conceal their actual North Korean origins. Once they had earned their victims’ trust, they walked away with hundreds of thousands of dollars in stolen cash.
DOJ Joins Forces with Global and Private Sectors
John A. Eisenberg, Assistant Attorney General for the Department’s National Security Division, noted that the activities represent a deliberate campaign to compromise U.S. firms, bypass economic sanctions, and redirect stolen funds to support North Korea’s unauthorized programs, particularly those related to weapons development.
As such, the DOJ, the private sector, and international counterparts aim to aggressively dismantle cyber-enabled financial operations that pose a threat to global security.
Following the theft of funds, Kim Kwang Jin and Jong Pong Ju utilized a virtual currency mixer to obscure the origin of the proceeds. The laundered funds were then transferred to crypto exchange accounts controlled by co-defendants Kang Tae Bok and Chang Nam Il. These accounts, however, were registered under aliases and opened using fraudulent Malaysian identification documents.
North Korean Operatives Enter UAE on False Documents
In October 2019, these men traveled to the United Arab Emirates on North Korean documents and worked collaboratively. Between December 2020 and May 2021, respectively, the bad actors used victims’ stolen identities to work as developers for an Atlanta, Georgia-based blockchain research and development company and a Serbian virtual token company.
While on the job, the defendants were granted access to their employer’s crypto assets. In February 2022, Jong Pong Ju allegedly used his system access to steal about $175,000 in crypto. A month later, in March, Kim Kwang Jin reportedly made unauthorized changes to the source code of two smart contracts belonging to his employer, resulting in the theft of approximately $740,000 in crypto assets.
Meanwhile, crypto theft and identity theft have been on the rise, rendering individuals frustrated. Earlier in May this year, a South Korean woman in her 40s received a 2-year prison sentence for fraudulently moving $500,000 in crypto from her boyfriend’s account.
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