Thousands of remote IT workers sent wages to North Korea to help fund weapons program, FBI says
ca.finance.yahoo.com
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Thousands of information technology workers contracting with U.S. companies have for years secretly sent millions of dollars of their wages to North Korea for use in its ballistic missile program, FBI and Department of Justice officials said. The Justice Department said Wednesday that IT workers dispatched and contracted by North Korea to work remotely with companies in St. Louis and elsewhere in the U.S. have been using false identities to get the jobs. The money they earned wa

Thousands of IT workers contracting with U.S. companies have for years secretly sent millions of dollars of their wages to North Korea for use in its ballistic missile program, FBI says::ST. LOUIS (AP) — Thousands of information technology workers contracting with U.S. companies have for years secretly sent millions of dollars of their wages to North Korea for use in its ballistic missile program, FBI and Department of Justice officials said. The Justice Department said Wednesday that IT workers dispatched and contracted by North Korea to work remotely with companies in St. Louis and elsewhere in the U.S. have been using false identities to get the jobs. The money they earned wa

  • logicbomb@lemmy.worldEnglish
    361·
    1 year ago

    Court documents allege that the government of North Korea dispatched thousands of skilled IT workers to live primarily in China and Russia with the goal of deceiving businesses from the U.S. and elsewhere into hiring them as freelance remote employees.

    This is fucking tragic. Imagine leaving North Korea, and you’d know for sure that the government has been lying to you your whole life, but you still have to send your salary back.

    I didn’t get through the whole article. But I wonder why these people didn’t just defect and keep their good jobs and money. Par for the course would be that their families were being threatened back in NK.

    • CosmicTurtle@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      1 year ago

      From what I know about North Korea, I highly suspect that the people sent were highly loyal, like the troops that they put in the DMZ.

      There was a documentary that I saw many years ago (and admittedly have been looking for it again since) that showed just how much control the government has over its people. The documentary made it a point to say that they weren’t sure if the people they interviewed actually believed that Kim Jung Un was a god or if they just said that for the cameras. Their devotion to him is devout.

    • AlmightySnoo 🐢🇮🇱🇺🇦@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      I didn’t get through the whole article. But I wonder why these people didn’t just defect

      Because Russia and China are North Korea’s allies and just recently China has been sending defectors back to North Korea.