Arizona Tiktoker convicted of helping $ 17 million North Korean IT employee schedule

An Arizonan Tiktok -Influencer received a long prison sentence on Thursday for helping the Noord -Korean agents who get fraudulent external IT jobs from hundreds of American companies, part of an advanced schedule to finance the sanctioned weapon program of the country.

Christina Marie Chapman was convicted of the district of Columbia for conspiracy of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering.

She was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison, three -year -old release, and ordered more than $ 284,000 to be forfeited and to pay a refund of $ 176,850.

“The Noord -Korean regime has generated millions of dollars for its nuclear weapons program by slaughtering American citizens, companies and financial institutions,” ald rack.

“Even an opponent who is as refined as the North Korean government cannot succeed without the help of willing American citizens such as Christina Chapman.”

The case is another example of the secret attempts of Noord -Korea to infiltrate foreign companies, in particular in the technical and crypto sectors. American authorities say that Pyongyang has used thousands of skilled IT workers worldwide that use false identities to remotely protect jobs and either the income back to the regime or to enable hackers to attack companies.

Crypto platforms in particular have emerged as frequent goals if planting employees is a way for the regime to find weaknesses in safety and to attack the crypto portfolios of a company. According to chain salysis, North Korean hackers stolen $ 1.34 billion in 2024 in 2024 alone, an increase of 21% compared to the previous year.

Chapman, a freelancer and influencer who had more than 100,000 followers on Tiktok, was initially approached by North Korean agents via LinkedIn.

From around 2020 she helped North Korean efforts by operating a “laptop farm” from her house, organizing computers sent by companies, so that IT employees had remotely access to them while they seem to be in the US

Authorities say that she also sent 49 devices to locations abroad, including several packages to a Chinese city near Noord -Korea. More than 90 laptops were seized from her house.

With the help of stolen or borrowed identities, the North Korean agents earned millions, sent wages through direct deposit or forged wage controls. Chapman helped to wash the money white through her own bills and then sent it abroad. The income was falsely reported under the names of real American citizens at the IRS and Social Security Administration.

For several years she helped North Korean employees to secure jobs at more than 300 American companies, including Fortune 500 companies, an important television network, a space manufacturer and a technology company in Silicon Valley.

Three North Koreans that are burdened next to Chapman remain in general.

North -Korean agents use different deception techniques to obscure their origins, including VPNs, to occur as people from other countries, and hire Others to occur initial interviews.

Fraser Edwards, CEO and founder of the British company Cheqd, said Decrypt That the company had experienced various infiltration attempts and had noticed several red flags that pointed to North Korean involvement.

“Our CTO went back and looked at some of the recordings [of interview tests] and when [the ostensibly European candidate was] There were Korean characters in motion between Windows, “said Edwards.

“Another red flag was IP addresses that always routed through proxies. They deliberately tried to hide their identity.”

Edwards and others say that North Koreans now use European actors to handle interviews at an early stage or screening calls, making detection more difficult. Even when they are caught, they often quickly turn to new fake identities or work reports.