‘Laptop farm', stolen identities: US woman jailed for aiding North Koreans in $17 million job scam

Indian Express

2 days ago

A US woman has been sentenced to over eight years in prison for helping North Korean IT workers use false identities to get remote jobs with American companies, The Guardian reported.
Christine Chapman, 38, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, identity theft, and money laundering. The fraud helped generate around $17 million, which US authorities say was partly used to support North Korea's nuclear weapons programme.
Chapman started working with the North Korean scheme in 2020, around the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. She was first contacted through LinkedIn, where she was asked to act as a US representative for a company and help overseas workers find remote jobs.
Chapman, who lived in Arizona and Minnesota, went on to help foreign workers—many based in North Korea—get jobs at hundreds of US companies. These included large firms such as Nike, a major Silicon Valley tech company, and a well-known media company, according to court documents.
'The employers believed they were hiring US citizens,' The Guardian reported, quoting the US Justice Department. 'Instead, the workers were located abroad, and Chapman was helping cover their tracks.'
She created what officials called 'laptop farms' by hosting and managing computers for the workers. She also sent some of the laptops overseas, helped verify stolen identity documents, and received paycheques that she then forwarded to her co-conspirators.
In October 2023, investigators raided her home and found 90 laptops. Investigators also found that the group had used the identities of 68 people, which caused tax problems for the victims.
In a message cited by The Guardian, Chapman admitted she knew what she was doing was wrong. 'I can go to federal prison for falsifying federal documents,' she wrote in an online chat with her co-workers.
In a letter to the court before sentencing, Chapman apologised to those affected and said she was trying to leave the group. 'I wasn't really sure how to do it,' she wrote. 'To the people who were harmed, I send my sincerest apologies. I am not someone who seeks to harm anyone.'
She also said the area where she lived had limited job opportunities and that she had been caring for her mother, who was ill at the time.
US District Judge Randolph Moss sentenced Chapman to over eight years in prison. She was also ordered to forfeit $284,000 and pay a $176,000 fine.
Cybersecurity experts quoted by The Guardian said that such scams have become more common as remote work has grown. They warned that fraudsters are now using artificial intelligence to improve their methods and urged companies to take extra steps to verify new hires.
'Once Covid hit and everybody really went virtual, a lot of the tech jobs never went back to the office,' said Benjamin Racenberg, a senior analyst at cybersecurity firm Nisos. 'North Koreans and other employment fraudsters realised they could trick hiring systems to get jobs.'
Authorities say Chapman's case is not unique. Earlier this year, the US charged several people—including two from North Korea for running a similar scheme that targeted at least 64 US companies and brought in nearly $900,000.
Experts say companies should consider requiring new hires to collect work equipment in person to avoid identity fraud.