A shade scam, which has lost for years. In the United States, many companies hire computer scientists who are actually North Koreans who hide their identity and falsify their CV. This scam allowed the Kim Jong-un government, to confiscate the majority of the salaries of these employees, enriched themselves. According to the FBI, in fact it has brought between several hundred and one billion dollars to the dictatorial regime, said American Fortune.
For years, the American Federal Office and the alert of the UN cybersecurity agency against what is considered one of the most spectacular international fraud in history. “North Korea avoiding US and UN sanctions by attacking private companies to illegally generate significant income for the regime,” he said in his last warning in July 2025.
This scam affects Fortune Companies 500, aerospace manufacturers and US financial institutions. According to the Crowdstrike cyber security company, it has allowed a global increase of 220% of intrusions in companies in the last 12 months.
Identity concealment
Many of these fraudster employees, who have been recruited for computer scratch positions on teleworking, live in a group of four or five in China and Russia. Among the techniques they use to deceive societies, some are simply content to steal identities, while others buy them from Americans. Minh Phuong Ngoc Vong, one of the people who agreed to lend their identity risks up to 20 years in prison, after declaring himself guilty of “conspiracy to commit electronic fraud.” It played more than $ 970,000 between 2021 and 2024 with this ploy.
Other fraudulent employees are even more using the artificial intellectual intellectual to create unique identities based on real and verified and, therefore, escape the controls of history and other security measures. According to an anthropic report published in August, some even use their AI assistant, Claude, to prepare for interviews and win jobs.
Despite this, these employees manage to get attractive to companies and then drown in six million personnel dedicated to it in American companies. During work interviews, they give the impression of loving their work and not being afraid of 12 hours. In addition, they do not complain, they do not take personal vacation and do not ask for a break for their mental health. The business leaders who recruited them sometimes declared that they were their best employees.
Scholars are always difficult to unmask
In addition to Americans who sell their identity, these scammers have other accomplices in the United States. In comparison, the latter are responsible for taking the computers of the scammers to illuminate them every morning, to allow remote access from other locations.
In its fight against this international scam, the FBI has sought remarkably dozen of these “laptops” in the United States, but others appear abroad “, from Western Europe to Romania and Poland,” said Adam Meyer, vice president of Crowdstrike in charge of anti-scroll control.
Given this danger, companies have implemented specific measures (and at least surprising) to unmask these identity usurpers of North Korea. Some, for example, advised the recruiters to ask the candidate to insult Kim Jong-un or ask them why he is so great to destabilize the scammers. But according to an analyst known as “Sttyk”, these tips no longer work.
Therefore, it is always difficult to identify these computer scientists. Especially because a new strategy has been implemented to hide them more. According to a researcher at Palo Alto Networks, it consists of subcontracting a growing part of his work for headquarters in India and Pakistan. The latter acts as an intermediary between the North Koreans and the company that pays them, which allows the first to hide even more.
If they have made many victims, these fraudulent employees are also in this story. Separated from their family, they can, among other things, be defeated and imprisoned, in addition to threats to their loved ones, if they do not earn enough money for the government.
Source: BFM TV
