Five People Plead Quilty To Helping North Koreans Infiltrate US Companies (techcrunch.com) 31
"Within the past year, stories have been posted on Slashdot about people helping North Koreans get remote IT jobs at U.S. corporations, companies knowingly assisting them, how not to hire a North Korean for a remote IT job, and how a simple question tripped up a North Korean applying for a remote IT job," writes longtime Slashdot reader smooth wombat. "The FBI is even warning companies that North Koreans working remotely can steal source code and extort money from the company -- money that goes to fund the North Korean government. Now, five more people have plead guilty to knowingly helping North Koreans infiltrate U.S. companies as remote IT workers." TechCrunch reports: The five people are accused of working as "facilitators" who helped North Koreans get jobs by providing their own real identities, or false and stolen identities of more than a dozen U.S. nationals. The facilitators also hosted company-provided laptops in their homes across the U.S. to make it look like the North Korean workers lived locally, according to the DOJ press release. These actions affected 136 U.S. companies and netted Kim Jong Un's regime $2.2 million in revenue, said the DOJ. Three of the people -- U.S. nationals Audricus Phagnasay, Jason Salazar, and Alexander Paul Travis -- each pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy.
Prosecutors accused the three of helping North Koreans posing as legitimate IT workers, whom they knew worked outside of the United States, to use their own identities to obtain employment, helped them remotely access their company-issued laptops set up in their homes, and also helped the North Koreans pass vetting procedures, such as drug tests. The fourth U.S. national who pleaded guilty is Erick Ntekereze Prince, who ran a company called Taggcar, which supplied to U.S. companies allegedly "certified" IT workers but whom he knew worked outside of the country and were using stolen or fake identities. Prince also hosted laptops with remote access software at several residences in Florida, and earned more than $89,000 for his work, the DOJ said.
Another participant in the scheme who pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy and another count of aggravated identity theft is Ukrainian national Oleksandr Didenko, who prosecutors accuse of stealing U.S. citizens' identities and selling them to North Koreans so they could get jobs at more than 40 U.S. companies. According to the press release, Didenko earned hundreds of thousands of dollars for this service. Didenko agreed to forfeit $1.4 million as part of his guilty plea. The DOJ also announced that it had frozen and seized more than $15 million in cryptocurrency stolen in 2023 by North Korean hackers from several crypto platforms.
Prosecutors accused the three of helping North Koreans posing as legitimate IT workers, whom they knew worked outside of the United States, to use their own identities to obtain employment, helped them remotely access their company-issued laptops set up in their homes, and also helped the North Koreans pass vetting procedures, such as drug tests. The fourth U.S. national who pleaded guilty is Erick Ntekereze Prince, who ran a company called Taggcar, which supplied to U.S. companies allegedly "certified" IT workers but whom he knew worked outside of the country and were using stolen or fake identities. Prince also hosted laptops with remote access software at several residences in Florida, and earned more than $89,000 for his work, the DOJ said.
Another participant in the scheme who pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy and another count of aggravated identity theft is Ukrainian national Oleksandr Didenko, who prosecutors accuse of stealing U.S. citizens' identities and selling them to North Koreans so they could get jobs at more than 40 U.S. companies. According to the press release, Didenko earned hundreds of thousands of dollars for this service. Didenko agreed to forfeit $1.4 million as part of his guilty plea. The DOJ also announced that it had frozen and seized more than $15 million in cryptocurrency stolen in 2023 by North Korean hackers from several crypto platforms.
They migh have even (Score:2)
Re: They migh have even (Score:2)
At least the main body got it right.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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Quilty? (Score:2)
"Quilty" huh? (Score:5, Funny)
Was it a blanket indictment? I hope they will be cozy in prison, but the way law and order are handled now they might be in bed with powerful people.
Re: (Score:2)
You laugh, but now the case is all sewn up.
Re: "Quilty" huh? (Score:2, Funny)
sounds like a cover up over a lot of sheet.
Quility post as usual (Score:2)
I miss Cowboy Neal
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You'd need a bigger quilty
quilty (Score:1)
And? (Score:2)
I know I should probably have some feeling about this story, but all I have is "and??"
It feels like....I dunno.....incomplete? I don't feel much about it I guess. It doesn't even seem particularly interesting. It was the first time I heard about this kind of thing, but now it's just....I dunno. Mundane?
But on a positive note, at least it isn't another duplicate story from two days ago, or yet another story about AI. I'll give it that much.
Found their names.. (Score:3)
Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, Meta, and Grok.
The companies were complicit (Score:2, Insightful)
It's just like how anytime we want to put a stop to illegal immigration you just throw a few businesses that hire them in jail.
But instead we brutalize the immigrants and look the other way 99% of the time when the businesses commit the crime.
Every now and then some small business owner gets raked over the coals but never any of the big ones. It's usually some shitty little Mexican re
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I do wonder how the "workers" manage to install remote access tools on those laptops.
I have seen/used a a few laptops issued by some companies and they seem pretty locked down. Including preventing you from installing anything you wanted on the device.
Re: The companies were complicit (Score:2)
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There's too much nuance even for activated leftists. They aren't cracking down in illegal immigration because they are racist. Its even worse. They are doing it because undocumented workers can demand higher pay and better working conditions because they are not limited by the terms of their visa. Check this out: An executive order that didn't show up on anyones social media [thenation.com] And think for a moment about Operation Blooming Onion [wikipedia.org]. They are trying to bring slavery back.
I'll be darned. (Score:1)
Youâ(TM)re all wrong; itâ(TM)s an obscur (Score:2)
Clare Quilty: a fictional character in Nabokov's 1955 novel Lolita. Meant to suggest âoeclearly guiltyâ according to Mr Giordano in 10th grade English class.
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Re: This should carry a very harsh sentence (Score:2)
Think about it (Score:2)
Quilty... (Score:2)
Interesting! (Score:2)
What I wanna know is do these North Koreans know visual basic and webforms? If so, how can I get infiltrated?
They're everywhere... (Score:2)