North Koreans posed as US tech workers to fund weapons, US says

Facing a raft of US and United Nations sanctions for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes, North Korea has turned to deploying IT workers overseas for government revenue, in addition to relying on cyberattacks and other online crimes, US and South Korean officials previously told Bloomberg. — Image by DC Studio on Freepik

Posing as Americans, North Korean technology workers secured remote work contracts with hundreds of US companies as part of a scheme to help fund Pyongyang’s illicit nuclear weapons and missile programmes, the US government said on May 16.

For three years, starting in October 2020, a US national named Christina Chapman of Arizona helped three North Korean IT workers obtain “illicit telework employment” using the identities of US citizens, earning about US$6.8mil (RM31.84mil), the State Department said.