US Charges Five People Over North Korean IT Worker Scheme

The US Department of Justice on Thursday announced charges against five individuals for their involvement in a North Korean IT worker scheme to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Pyongyang regime.

The indictment names North Korean nationals Jin Sung-Il and Pak Jin-Song and their facilitators, US nationals Erick Ntekereze Prince and Emanuel Ashtor, and Mexican national Pedro Ernesto Alonso De Los Reyes. The suspects allegedly obtained work from over 64 US companies.

As part of the scheme, which ran from approximately April 2018 through August 2024, the defendants allegedly generated over $866,000 in revenue, laundering most of the funds through a Chinese bank account.

Ashtor, Ntekereze, and Alonso have been arrested. The FBI executed a search warrant at Ashtor’s residence in North Carolina, where he operated a ‘laptop farm’, hosting company-provided laptops so that US companies would believe they hired workers in the country.

To conceal ...