5 Plead Guilty to Helping North Korea Defraud U.S. Companies in $2.2M Scheme

On November 14, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that five people have pleaded guilty to helping North Koreans defraud U.S. companies by posing as remote IT workers. The facilitators provided their own real or stolen identities to help the North Koreans obtain employment, and hosted company-issued laptops in their homes to make it appear the workers were based locally.

This scheme affected 136 U.S. companies and netted Kim Jong Un's regime $2.2 million in revenue. The U.S. companies paid around $1.28 million in salaries, most of which was sent back to the North Korean IT workers overseas.

Prosecutors accused three U.S. nationals - Audricus Phagnasay, Jason Salazar, and Alexander Paul Travis - of assisting the North Koreans, with Travis earning over $50,000 for his involvement. Another U.S. national, Erick Ntekereze Prince, ran a company that supplied "certified" IT workers who were actually using stolen or fake identities and working remotely from outside the country. Ukrainian national Oleksandr Didenko also pleaded guilty to stealing U.S. citizens' identities and selling them to North Koreans.

This latest round of guilty pleas is part of the U.S. government's ongoing efforts to disrupt North Korea's ability to fund its nuclear weapons program through cybercrime. Authorities have been indicting people involved in these schemes and seizing stolen funds, including $15 million in cryptocurrency stolen by North Korean hackers this year.