A federal court in St. Louis has indicted 14 North Koreans for allegedly participating in a long-running plot to extort funds from U.S. companies and funnel money to Pyongyang's weapons programs.
This larger project would involve thousands of North Korean IT workers using fake identities, stolen or borrowed from people in the United States and other countries, to get hired and work remotely for American companies.
The indictment says the defendants and others working with them generated at least $88 million (£51.5 million) for the North Korean regime over a six-year period.
North Korea's mission to the UN did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BBC News.
Prosecutors say the suspects worked for two companies controlled by North Korea: Yanbian Silverstar, based in China, and Volasys Silverstar, based in Russia.
They were part of a group of 130 North Korean computer scientists employed by the two companies, nicknamed internally “the IT warriors”, according to the US Department of Justice.
The suspects were allegedly ordered to demand a salary of $10,000 per month from their American employers.
In addition to the monthly salary, they also raised funds for the North Korean regime by stealing valuable company information and threatening to release it unless the employer paid extortion.
The group now faces charges of wire fraud, money laundering, identity theft and other charges.
In addition to using stolen identities to avoid detection, prosecutors said they paid people residing in the United States to receive, install and host laptops provided by American employers.
They would then ask these U.S. residents to install remote access software that would allow them to appear to be working from the United States when they were actually abroad.
Investigators believe the suspects are in North Korea, making it unlikely they will ever be brought to justice.
The US State Department nevertheless announced that it would offer a reward of up to $5 million to anyone able to provide more information about the suspects as well as Yanbian and Volasys.
U.S. officials did not name the U.S. companies targeted by the project.
“While we have disrupted this group and identified its leaders, this is only the tip of the iceberg,” said Special Agent in Charge Ashley T. Johnson of the FBI St. Louis Field Office.
“The government of North Korea has trained and deployed thousands of IT workers to carry out this same scheme against American companies every day.”
