[HN Gopher] Arizona laptop farmer pleads guilty for funneling $1...
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Arizona laptop farmer pleads guilty for funneling $17M to Kim Jong
Un
Author : Bluestein
Score : 143 points
Date : 2025-05-01 16:48 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Chapman also helped the foreign fraudsters steal the identities
| of more than 70 US nationals, then use those identities to apply
| for remote IT jobs, according to the Feds. Those who
| successfully obtained employment as part of the scam then
| received payroll checks at Chapman's home with direct deposits
| sent to her US bank accounts before ultimately being laundered
| and funneled to North Korea...
|
| So, bit more involved than just running a VPN/proxy service.
| ty6853 wrote:
| There was probably an army of NK workers to do the lifting. By
| design an American would have had responsibilities limited to
| signing the right dotted lines and being a pretty white face at
| the bank.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Sure, but you lose the ability to claim ignorance about the
| farm's activities when you are receiving other people's pay
| checks.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| "pretty white face"
|
| Racist much?
|
| https://newsexpressngr.com/news/251800/woman-pleads-
| guilty-i...
| jollyllama wrote:
| ADP could probably find a lot of these pretty quickly.
| arccy wrote:
| I wonder if the laptops are organic, free range laptops
| devonbleak wrote:
| Farm to table laptops
| bArray wrote:
| The laptops get a minimum of 30 minutes of fresh air a day via
| HVAC and they're fed on green energy (courtesy of the
| neighbour). Occasionally the laptops play up and get
| overheated, in which case they are taken out and isolated until
| their behaviour is corrected.
| Bluestein wrote:
| Beatings would, then, continue until behaviour improved ...
| :)
| gosub100 wrote:
| Cattle, not pets
| kgwxd wrote:
| Gateway 2000s, not Commodores
| JadeNB wrote:
| I hope that's a reference to the old Gateway cow-patterned
| logo.
| userbinator wrote:
| ...which I believe is itself a reference to (farmer in
| the) Dell.
| bitwize wrote:
| It's because Gateway (as Gateway 2000) was originally
| based in Iowa and founded by a guy who came from a cattle
| farming family.
| belter wrote:
| They run the Todelo Family OS so ICE will be on the case...
| cko wrote:
| > Christina Marie Chapman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit
| wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to launder
| monetary instruments in a US District Court on Tuesday.
|
| Why not treason? Any lawyers know?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The Constitution defines treason very narrowly - the only crime
| to be specifically defined in it:
|
| > Treason against the United States, shall consist only in
| levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies,
| giving them Aid and Comfort.
|
| The last time we convicted someone for it was in 1949.
| abeppu wrote:
| ... is helping them get $17M not "giving Aid and Comfort"?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| We are not presently _at war_ with North Korea.
| eschaton wrote:
| Actually the Korean War hasn't ended yet.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The US never declared war on North Korea in the first
| place, and there are no active hostilities between the
| two.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason_laws_in_the_United_
| Sta...
|
| > The terms used in the definition derive from English
| legal tradition, specifically the Treason Act 1351.
| Levying war means the assembly of armed people to
| overthrow the government or to resist its laws. Enemies
| are subjects of a foreign government that is in open
| hostility with the United States.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| Nor Venezuela, and yet the Alien Enemies Act has been
| invoked.
|
| You are right, of course, but it's not relevant to policy
| decisions.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'd note that a Trump appointed judge just made that
| point about the AEA.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/us/texas-judge-trump-
| alie...
|
| > He also found that the "plain ordinary meaning" of the
| act's language, like "invasion" and "predatory
| incursion," referred to an attack by "military forces"
| and did not line up with Mr. Trump's claims about the
| activities of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan street gang,
| in a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act.
| mikeocool wrote:
| Not a lawyer, but treason charges in the US are pretty rare --
| there's been one person charged with Treason since 1954. Even
| the Rosenbergs weren't charged with Treason.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Why not treason?
|
| The same reason almost no one is ever charged with treason,
| given the plethora of other criminal charges available to
| anything that might remotely be similar to treason: Article
| III, Section 3 of the US Constitution: "Treason against the
| United States, shall consist only in levying War against them,
| or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
| No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony
| of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in
| open Court."
|
| Even where the first part (in which, it should be noted, the
| terms involved are interpreted very narrowly) is not
| problematic, the "two witnesses" rule, which is applied
| _independently_ to _each_ fact necessary to sustain the
| conviction, is usually quite difficult to overcome, so its
| usually vastly easier to get a conviction for something else.
| tcdent wrote:
| It's rare that I come across a story about some questionable
| ethics in black hat tech and don't have some sympathy for the
| perpetrator.
|
| But this is not that. This is blatant treason.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's run-of-the-mill organized crime that happens to
| benefit a shitty regime.
|
| We didn't even charge Soviet spies with treason.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen
| toast0 wrote:
| It's not levying war against the United States. I don't
| know what the legal definition of Enemies is, but I would
| imagine it would involve a declaration of war.
|
| The Korean war was never formally resolved, but the US
| hasn't declared war since WWII.
|
| There's also no indication of adherence here.
|
| Doing things that benefit a country and a leader that your
| government officically doesn't care for can be all shades
| of prohibited and illegal, but it's not treason.
| mtVessel wrote:
| | I don't know what the legal definition of Enemies is,
| but I would imagine it would involve a declaration of
| war.
|
| These days, some vague tattoos will do it.
| jcranmer wrote:
| No one has been convicted of treason since WWII. One
| person has been charged with treason, but they were
| remote-murdered by the US government before they were
| tried, and it's not at all clear that a conviction would
| have withstood appeal. Note that Congress did expressly
| pass a resolution in the Global War on Terror that can be
| construed as declaring war on terrorists; if anything
| short of outright declaration of war qualifies as a
| foreign entity as an "enemy" for the purposes of the
| treason declaration, that is it.
| netsharc wrote:
| Eh, if your president and his stinky regime does it...
|
| Brandeis wrote about how a lawbreaking government breeds
| contempt for the law and invites every man to be a
| lawbreaker by in 1928, but since then women have gained
| more rights: https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1062178
| rdtsc wrote:
| Too high of a bar. She would have to have an intent
| specifically to betray and hurt the US and act on it. Just
| acting or just having an intent is not enough.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| These are financial crimes against Americans. They're not
| attacks on the country's security unless you take very broad
| view of security.
| burnte wrote:
| Because money laundering and trade with a banned nation isn't
| the same as attempting to overthrow the government.
| sigtrap wrote:
| So I guess it isn't that hard to get a completely remote no-
| facetime job after all?!
| IshKebab wrote:
| Presumably not if you're willing to work for North Korean
| salaries.
| mxuribe wrote:
| I read somewhere quite recently (sorry, don't have ref. right
| now) that its a bit of a large team effort (several to many
| engineers working together) to ensure getting the job, and then
| a continued team effort (again several to many engineers) to
| ensure continued high performance at said job...in order to be
| able to persist the operations. Quite clever as i understand,
| though brutal for participants i also imagine.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > Fortune 500 companies, including a top-five television network,
| a premier Silicon Valley technology company, an aerospace and
| defense manufacturer, an American car manufacturer, a luxury
| retail chain, and a US-hallmark media and entertainment company.
|
| Wonder what those companies are, any guesses?
|
| https://www.justice.gov/archives/usao-dc/media/1352191/dl
|
| > JOHN DOE 1, alias hanjiho Jiho HAN (HAN), was an individual
| residing overseas who opened accounts with a foreign money
| service transmitter ("MST") that conducts U.S. dollar
| transactions through a branch in New York (hereinafter "MST-1").
| HAN would then forward the funds to an individual in the People's
| Republic of China ("China"). HAN also received funds from CHAPMAN
| for an overseas IT worker that CHAPMAN first deposited into one
| of her U.S. financial accounts.
|
| > JOHN DOE 2, alias Hao Ran Xu Haoran XU (XU), was an
| individual residing overseas who registered for financial
| accounts with U.S. MSTs. XU provided his name, date of birth, and
| a Chinese National ID to U.S. MSTs to register for these
| accounts.
|
| > JOHN DOE 3, alias Chun Ji Jin Chunji JIN (JIN), was an
| individual residing overseas who registered for financial
| accounts with U.S. MSTs. JIN provided her name, date of birth,
| and a Chinese National ID to U.S. MSTs to register for these
| accounts
|
| Aha so it's not just NK, China is involved as well. I would guess
| the Chinese govt is quite happy to look the other way here.
|
| > On or about November 15, 2022, CHAPMAN messaged with an
| overseas IT worker using the screenname "Alexander The Great"
| ("AT"), wherein AT asked 21 CHAPMAN for assistance creating a
| background story for a stolen U.S. person identity, "Daniel B."
| AT noted that the real Daniel B. had a criminal record and
| employers were asking for more information as to what offenses
| were committed. CHAPMAN provided a cover story and asked "What
| information do you know about Daniel B[.]?? Do you know his
| race?" AT responded that the real Daniel B. was "a black man" but
| that he (AT) was Asian. AT then gave CHAPMAN his "real full
| name," which was a Chinese name
|
| "Alexander the Great" - one can image a poor child, wanted to be
| a history major, but through an ugly twist of fate, they ended up
| as a hacker stealing identities and having to solve leet code
| puzzles with ChatGPT /s
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| News from February? C'mon OP.
|
| Also mostly a 2024 story.
|
| Related / connected Nashville case from last year:
|
| US dismantles laptop farm used by undercover North Korean IT
| workers
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41356483
|
| Also:
|
| We found North Korean engineers in our application pile
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41353079
| tclancy wrote:
| Hey, not everything can be farm to table. Sometimes stuff has
| to get rerouted a few times.
| carterschonwald wrote:
| Has anyone else seen the term "Norks" before? The intended
| meaning is clear when it's used midway in the article but I've
| never seen it ever before.
| burnte wrote:
| Took me a moment to figure it out too.
| floren wrote:
| El Reg uses it pretty consistently.
| bsimpson wrote:
| The Register has a reputation for being playful with language.
| decimalenough wrote:
| It's an old US military/intelligence term.
|
| And it's somewhat amusing in Australia, where "norks" is slang
| for "tits".
| gerdesj wrote:
| Norks has at least two meanings in en_GB. North Koreans and
| (generally) female breasts. The first has a pretty obvious
| derivation and the second is anyone's guess.
|
| Surely no-one would conflate norks with norks. Please, no
| riffing on the sheer size of the Dear Leader's ... errm ...
| norks.
|
| Now, how about "nack", "nark", "nick", "nock", "neck", "nerk"
| and "nuck"? I know they are all valid en_GB words, except nuck
| but I'll bet it is in use somewhere. Slap a k on the front for
| more fulsome larkery.
|
| Hopefully that has cleared that up.
|
| (edit: add some more n..k words and a note about a leading k)
| Wingman4l7 wrote:
| First place I ever heard it was in the FPS game Homefront,
| where you're part of a "resistance movement fighting in the
| near-future against the military occupation of the Western
| United States by a reunified Korea".
| throw7 wrote:
| What is "The Norks"? (apparently it can mean "tits", but I'm
| pretty sure that's not what it means here)
| JadeNB wrote:
| In the context, almost certainly North Koreans.
| mmh0000 wrote:
| Derogatory slang for North Koreans[1]
|
| Though not commonly used; though it does pop-up from time-to-
| time[2]
|
| [1] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Norks
|
| [2] https://www.nationalreview.com/the-feed/korean-war-ii-
| watch-...
| some_random wrote:
| Colloquial term for _Nor_ th _K_ oreans, similar to Chicoms (
| _Chi_ nese _Com_ munists). I'm not what the modern connotation
| is, in my mind it's a little suspect but not really offensive
| compared to the typical race based terms used in other
| conflicts.
| autoexec wrote:
| A VPN or a botnet would have accomplished the same thing as the
| laptops. The real problem was that she opened bank accounts, had
| the scammers direct deposit their checks there and then tried to
| launder the money and get it back to North Korea
| JohnMakin wrote:
| > A VPN or a botnet would have accomplished the same thing as
| the laptops.
|
| Erm, no. Company is going to ship you a laptop and you are a NK
| spy. Where do they send it?
| johnea wrote:
| I have a serious issue with this idea that anyone trying to
| remote s/w engineer from North Korea is automatically a
| terrorist.
|
| Maybe some of them are just trying to make a living?
|
| Maybe a lot of them are economically disadvantageous because,
| like with Cuba, the US has been f_cking with them non-stop for
| the last 75 years?
|
| Maybe instead of assuming that every person inside a geographic
| area agrees to all the exact same things, we should normalize
| relations with North Korea?
|
| The Cold War, like all other wars, is an idiot's errand, which
| has contributed to the entrenched hostilities that continue to
| dominate international relations.
|
| Maybe world leaders should try "adulting"?
|
| Since pretending to be a grown-up seems to be as close as anyone
| gets anymore...
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| How are these poor people even getting internet? North Koreans
| can't just hop on the web.
|
| Maybe if they live near the border with China they can use
| antennas to get onto someone Chinese persons wifi network?
| netsharc wrote:
| Indeed, it would be very implausible that a civilian North
| Korean would be able to accomplish all of: having the
| hardware, be able to get on a Chinese WiFi, and then have the
| education to be able to apply to IT jobs...
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| They have offices with attached dormitories in China that
| they work out of.
| suid wrote:
| > I have a serious issue with this idea that anyone trying to
| remote s/w engineer from North Korea is automatically a
| terrorist. > Maybe some of them are just trying to make a
| living?I have a serious issue with this idea that anyone trying
| to remote s/w engineer from North Korea is automatically a
| terrorist. > Maybe some of them are just trying to make a
| living?
|
| No one in North Korea get to "just make a living" communicating
| with and working for foreign entities. This is a country that
| is so paranoid that every visitor to the country is required to
| stay with an official escort who will vet any contact you have
| with locals.
|
| The only way that someone gets to communicate with a foreign
| entity is if they are employed, or closely managed, by the
| North Korean authorities.
| ty6853 wrote:
| Maybe I'm the only one here but I don't see anything
| whatsoever wrong with employing literal genocidal terrorists
| in honest non-genocidal activity.
|
| Not that I support what this lady did, which was fraud and
| identity theft.
| johnea wrote:
| Thanks for your support of getting people out of genocidal
| roles...
| notahacker wrote:
| I'm not sure that agents of the North Korean government
| deemed loyal enough to get external internet access are
| looking for jobs at defense firms and devs in order to be
| good, honest employees that definitely wouldn't clone any
| technology or backdoor anything...
| ty6853 wrote:
| Sure but if it were legal I would be fine with hiring
| them to like, pave my driveway or something.
| ridiculous_leke wrote:
| What was her motivation? Financial problems or just greed?
| csdx wrote:
| Apparently the best way to filter out fake NK workers in
| interviews, one can just ask: "How fat is Kim Jong Un?" [1]. I am
| not sure how true it is, but I found it amusing anyway.
|
| Also I just realised this is my second HN comment, last one was
| 11 years ago exactly today. 1/365 chance I guess. Not bad.
|
| [1]
| https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/29/north_korea_worker_in...
| __jonas wrote:
| I'd say I'm also probably quite likely to instantly leave an
| interview call if I'm asked this, it's a pretty unhinged
| question to be asked out of nowhere, not sure how high their
| false positives are with that one
| bozhark wrote:
| NK spy found. Sorry, DPRK Agent
| bozhark wrote:
| See you for round 2 in 2036
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