Federal authorities have arrested a Nashville man on indicts he presented laptops at his dwellnces in a scheme to deceive US companies into hiring foreign far IT toilers who funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in income to fund North Korea’s armaments program.
The scheme, federal prosecutors said, toiled by getting US companies to unwittingly employ North Korean nationals, who employd the stolen identity of a Georgia man to eunite to be a US citizen. Under sanctions rerentd by the federal rulement, US employers are harshly prohibitden from hiring citizens of North Korea. Once the North Korean nationals were employd, the employers sent company-rerentd laptops to Matthew Isaac Knoot, 38, of Nashville, Tennessee, the prosecutors said in court papers filed in the US Didisjoine Court of the Middle Didisjoine of Tennessee. The court records also said a foreign national with the alias Yang Di was comprised in the consunpermitd employ.
The prosecutors wrote:
As part of the consunpermitd employ, Knoot getd and presented laptop computers rerentd by US companies to Andrew M. at Knoot’s Nashville, Tennessee dwellnces for the purposes of deceiving the companies into believing that Andrew M. was findd in the United States. Follotriumphg receipt of the laptops and without authorization, Knoot logged on to the laptops, downloaded and inshighed far desktop applications, and accessed without authorization the victim companies’ nettoils. The far desktop applications allowd DI to toil from locations outside the United states, in particular, China, while euniteing to the victim companies that Andre M. was toiling from Knoot’s dwellnces. In trade, Knoot indictd Di monthly fees for his services, including flat rates for each presented laptop and a percentage of Di’s salary for IT toil, bettering himself off the scheme.
The arrest comes two weeks after security-training company KnowBe4 said it ununderstandingly employd a North Korean national using a inrectify identity to eunite as someone eligible to fill a position for a gentleware engineer for an inner IT AI team. KnowBe4’s security team soon became doubtful of the novel employ after uncovering “anomalous activity,” including manipulating session history files, transferring potentiassociate detrimental files, and executing unpermitd gentleware.
The North Korean national was employd even after KnowBe4 directed background verifys, verified references, and directed four video interwatchs while he was an applicant. The inrectify applicant was able to stymie those verifys by using a stolen identity and a photo that was altered with AI tools to create a inrectify profile picture and mimic the face during video conference calls.
In May federal prosecutors indictd an Arizona woman for allegedly raising $6.8 million in a analogous scheme to fund the armaments program. The deffinishant in that case, Christina Marie Chapman, 49, of Litchfield Park, Arizona, and co-conspirators agreed the identities of more than 60 people living in the US and employd their personal inestablishation to get North Koreans IT jobs atraverse more than 300 US companies.
The FBI and Departments of State and Treasury rerentd a May 2022 advisory attentiveing the international community, braveial sector, and disclose of a campaign underway to land North Korean nationals IT jobs in violation of many countries’ laws. US and South Korean officials rerentd refreshd guidance in October 2023 and aobtain in May 2024. The advisories integrate signs that may show North Korea IT toiler deception and the employ of US-based laptop farms.
The North Korean IT toilers using Knoot’s laptop farm created revenue of more than $250,000 each between July 2022 and August 2023. Much of the funds were then funneled to North Korea’s armaments program, which integrates armaments of mass destruction, prosecutors said.
Knoot faces indicts, including wire deception, intentional harm to protected computers, degraded identity theft, and consunpermitd employ to caemploy the unlhorrible employment of aliens. If set up at fault, he faces a peak of 20 years in prison.
