The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Wednesday announced sanctions against a Russian national and a Chinese company for their roles in North Korean fraudulent IT worker schemes.
Over the past several years, hundreds of US companies are believed to have been duped into hiring North Korean nationals that used false or stolen identities to obtain IT employment and funnel the fraudulently obtained revenue to the Pyongyang regime.
Using fraudulent documents, stolen personal information, and AI to hide their true identities, and aided by individuals and organizations in the US and elsewhere to hide their location, these fake IT workers netted hundreds of millions of dollars, the US Treasury says.
In some cases, the fraudulent IT workers deployed malware on their employers’ networks, to steal sensitive data. Some of them engaged in extortion tactics.
On Wednesday, OFAC designated Vitaliy Sergeyevich Andreyev, a Russian national, for facilitating payments to Chinyong Information Technology Cooperation Company, a Chinese firm sanctioned by the US.
Working with Kim Ung Sun, a Russia-based North Korean economic and trade consular official, Andreyev facilitated the transfer of approximately $600,000 through the conversion of cryptocurrency to cash, the US Treasury says.
The OFAC also designated Shenyang Geumpungri Network Technology Co., Ltd, a Chinese front company for Chinyong.
Since 2021, the office says, Shenyang Geumpungri’s delegation of North Korean IT workers earned over $1 million in revenue for Chinyong and for North Korean company Korea Sinjin Trading Corporation, which is subordinated to the Pyongyang government.
As a result of the sanctions, all US property and interest in property of the designated entities are blocked, and individuals and organizations in the US are prohibited from making transactions with the designated entities.
Related: US Storms 29 Laptop Farms in Crackdown on North Korean IT Worker Schemes
Related: Developer Who Hacked Former Employer’s Systems Sentenced to Prison
