While physical warfare remains a factor for nation-states in their pursuit of global dominance or sovereignty, cyber warfare operations are increasingly integrated into countries’ national security strategies. Like North Korea, who has deployed thousands of highly skilled IT workers around the world in attempts to obtain remote employment using stolen identities. However, even an adversary as sophisticated as the North Korean government can’t succeed without the assistance of a willing U.S. citizens like Christina Chapman.
Chapman helped North Korean IT workers obtain jobs at 309 U.S. companies, including Fortune 500 corporations. Chapman operated a “laptop farm” where she received and hosted computers from the U.S. companies at her home, deceiving the companies into believing that the work was being performed in the United States. More than 90 laptops were seized from Chapman’s home following the execution of a search warrant in October 2023.
Much of the millions of dollars in income generated by this scheme was falsely reported to the IRS and Social Security Administration in the names of actual U.S. individuals whose identities had been stolen or borrowed. Additionally, Chapman received and forged payroll checks in the names of the stolen identities used by the IT workers and received IT workers’ wages through direct deposit from U.S. companies into her U.S. financial accounts. Chapman further transferred the proceeds from the scheme to individuals connected to the North Korean government.
On July 25, 2025, Chapman was sentenced to almost nine years in prison.
Outstanding job by the FBI in this case.
Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “Arizona woman to serve 8 years for identity theft scheme benefiting North Korea” published by National Public Radio on July 25, 2025.
An Arizona woman was sentenced to prison on Thursday for her role in a $17 million scam that helped North Koreans steal Americans’ identities and use them to land remote IT jobs at hundreds of U.S. companies.
U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss ordered Christina Chapman to serve over eight years behind bars for what the Department of Justice described in a press release as “one of the largest North Korean IT worker fraud schemes” the agency had ever charged. The plot ran from 2020 to 2023. North Korea is under sanctions from the United States — as well as the United Nations and several other countries — largely in response to the isolated authoritarian state’s weapons programs.
