The U.S. Treasury Department has approved the international fraud network used by North Korea to infiltrate US companies under the guise of legitimate job seekers, agency officials announced Wednesday.
The sanctions are the latest lawsuit filed by the US Treasury in recent months that aims to help North Korean government workers seek employment in American companies using fake identities and documents to apply for employment. When hired, hackers earn wages from the company, but they force their employers by stealing sensitive company data and demanding ransom.
In a statement Wednesday, the Treasury Ministry said the fraud network generated at least $1 million in profits from the North Korean regime. This is one of many such schemes that helped raise billions of dollars of stolen funds, including cryptocurrencies, to fund internationally-sanctioned nuclear weapons programs.
As part of the latest enforcement round, the Ministry of Finance has approved Vitaly Sergeevich Andreiyev, a Russian citizen accused of working with North Korea to promote payments to a company called Jinyoung. The Ministry of Finance, which approved Chinyong in 2024, says the company employs a delegation of fraudulent IT workers based in Russia and Laos.
The US says Andreiyev worked with a Russian-based North Korean consul to wash nearly $600,000 in money stolen by cryptocurrency for the regime to be called Kim Un Sang.
The Treasury Department also employs Shekenyang Geumpungri, a Chinese company that says the US is hiring fraudulent IT workers on behalf of the North Korean government, and Sinjin, another North Korean front company in the IT Workers Scheme.
It is a US-based facilitator who supports the latest sanctions targeting North Korea and North Korea's vast money-stolen schemes. North Korea is very devoted to stealing money, converting it into cryptocurrency, and skirting out access to the world's financial system.
Although this scheme is not new, North Koreans are becoming increasingly effective at getting jobs in the US and other Western companies.
Security researchers in the past few years have begun to raise warnings about plans for North Korean IT workers. Security company Crowdstrike says North Korean hackers have invaded hundreds of businesses exclusively in the US, using fake documents and deception techniques to get jobs.
The new sanctions mean that US companies, or companies doing business with US companies, are prohibited from trading or cooperating with those listed by the Treasury Department. In fact, the Ministry of Finance rules held legal liability to employing companies to prevent North Korea and other licensed individuals from mistakenly hiring them.