ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – Four North Korean agents were indicted for allegedly stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency from an Atlanta business, according to prosecutors.
On Tuesday, June 24, a federal grand jury indicted Kim Kwang Jin, Kang Tae Bok, Jong Pong Ju and Chang Nam Il, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia said in a press release Monday.
Prosecutors said the indictment stems from a scheme in which the suspects used fake and stolen identities to get hired as remote IT workers for a blockchain research and development company in Atlanta, along with a Serbian virtual token company. Prosecutors did not name the companies.
The suspects then exploited their victims’ trust to steal and launder over $900,000 in virtual currency, according to prosecutors.
It’s part of a larger cybercrime operation involving North Korean agents posing as IT workers “to deceive and infiltrate American companies” and steal from them, allowing the country’s regime to evade sanctions and fund its ”illicit programs, including its weapons programs.”
“This indictment highlights the unique threat North Korea poses to companies that hire remote IT workers and underscores our resolve to prosecute any actor, in the United States or abroad, who steals from Georgia businesses,” Theodore Hertzberg, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, said in a statement.
In October 2019, the suspects traveled to the United Arab Emirates on North Korean documents to begin their operation, according to prosecutors.
Between December 2020 and May 2021, Kim Kwang Jin and Jong Pong Ju allegedly used fake and stolen identities to get hired as developers by the Atlanta company and the Serbian company. Prosecutors said the companies would not have hired Kim or Jong if they knew they were North Korean citizens.
On a recommendation from Jong, the Serbian company later hired Chang Nam Il, who was also reportedly using a fake identity.
After gaining their employers’ trust, Kim and Jong “were assigned projects that provided them access to their employers’ virtual currency assets.”
In February 2022, Jong allegedly stole virtual currency then worth around $175,000. In March 2022, Kim is accused of stealing virtual currency then worth around $740,000.
To launder the money, Kim Kwang Jin and Jong Pong Ju “used a virtual currency mixer” to hide the money’s origin and then “transferred the funds to virtual currency exchange accounts” controlled by Chang and Kang Tae Bok, which they held under fake names.
The four suspects are now wanted by the FBI on charges of fraud conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy.
The U.S. State Department is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information that “leads to the disruption of financial mechanisms” of the suspects in the cybercrime scheme, according to an FBI flyer.
The FBI is investigating the case as part of the Department of Justice’s “DPRK RevGen: Domestic Enabler Initiative,” which targets North Korea’s “illicit revenue generation efforts and the U.S.-based enablers of those efforts.”
“The FBI is committed to exposing these threats and protecting U.S. businesses from nation-state cybercrime,” Paul Brown, special agent in charge of FBI Atlanta, said in a statement.
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