The Justice Department notched a few more wins in the fight against North Korean cryptocurrency heists and the regime’s expansive scheme to get remote IT workers hired at U.S. businesses.
Officials’ countermeasures to these schemes, which ultimately launder ill-gotten money to North Korea’s government, involve the targeting of U.S.-based facilitators who provide forged or stolen identities and laptop farms for North Korean operatives, and the seizure of cryptocurrency linked to theft. Law enforcement wins on both fronts are stacking up.
Oleksandr Didenko, a 28-year-old Ukrainian national, pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Monday for stealing the identities of U.S. citizens and selling them to overseas IT workers. His years-long scheme helped North Korean IT workers gain employment at 40 U.S. companies, officials said.
Didenko ran a site, upworksell.com, to sell stolen identities and paid co-conspirators to receive and host laptop farms in Virginia, Tennessee and California, according to court records. Didenko managed up to 871 identities through the laptop farms and collaborated with other co-conspirators in the United States.
In late 2023, following a request from one of his customers, Didenko sent a computer to a laptop farm run by Christina Chapman in Arizona, officials said. Chapman was arrested in May 2024 and sentenced to 102 months in prison for participating in the scheme.
Didenko’s site was seized following Chapman’s arrest. In late 2024, he was arrested by Polish police later extradited to the United States. Didenko agreed to forfeit more than $1.4 million, and his sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 19, 2026.
Justice Department officials applauded other recent court case wins, demonstrating the arduous work required to find and punish those who facilitate the North Korean remote IT worker scheme.
Three U.S. nationals — Audricus Phagnasay, 24, Jason Salazar, 30, and Alexander Paul Travis, 34 — each pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia Thursday for providing U.S. identities to remote North Korean IT workers.
The trio hosted U.S. company-provided laptops at their homes and installed remote-access software so the North Korean operatives could appear to be working in the country. The group also helped remote IT workers pass employer vetting and, in the case of Travis and Salazar, took drug tests on behalf of the North Koreans, officials said.
The scheme supported by the three men facilitated about $1.28 million in salary from victim U.S. companies from September 2019 through November 2022. Yet, the financial cuts for their assistance was relatively low. Travis, an active-duty member of the U.S. Army at the time, received about $51,000 while Phagasay and Salazar each pocketed about $3,500 and $4,500, respectively.
Last week, another U.S. national, 30-year-old Erick Ntekereze Prince, pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida for his yearslong involvement in the North Korean IT worker scheme. Prince’s company Taggcar was contracted to supply IT workers to victim U.S. companies from June 2020 through August 2024.
Officials said Prince earned more than $89,000 from the scheme, which also involved hosting company-provided laptops at Florida residences and installing remote-access software. Prince was indicted and charged in January along with his alleged co-conspirators, who collectively obtained work for North Korean IT workers at 64 U.S. companies, earning nearly $950,000 in salary payments.
The five people who pleaded guilty during the past week impacted more than 136 U.S. victim companies, officials said. Their crimes generated more than $2.2 million for North Korea’s regime and compromised the identities of at least 18 U.S. residents.
“These actions demonstrate the department’s comprehensive approach to disrupting North Korean efforts to finance their weapons program on the backs of Americans,” John A. Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement. “The department will use every available tool to protect our nation from this regime’s depredations.”
Finally, the Justice Department said it seized more than $15 million in cryptocurrency from APT38, a nation-state hacking group with ties to North Korea. Officials said the seized funds were traced to four separate virtual currency heists in 2023.