[HN Gopher] American sentenced for helping North Koreans get job...
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American sentenced for helping North Koreans get jobs at U.S. firms
Author : fortran77
Score : 62 points
Date : 2025-07-24 20:28 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fortune.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (fortune.com)
| valbaca wrote:
| paywall, but when I remember hearing about this I couldn't
| believe she wasn't being charged with treason.
|
| She's literally helping North Korea's government siphon money
| from American companies.
| philipkglass wrote:
| Treason is narrowly defined and convictions are very rare under
| US law:
|
| https://theweek.com/articles/869173/brief-history-treason-un...
|
| _The history of actual treason, in the sense of federal
| criminal prosecutions for the concept defined in the
| Constitution and adopted almost immediately as a federal
| offense, is remarkably short. Since the ratification of the
| Constitution in 1789, there have been only 40 federal treason
| cases, and far fewer convictions. (John Adams secured the
| passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts in part because the
| constitutional definition of treason was too narrow.) Even the
| most famous "traitors" in American history were not technically
| guilty of treason. Benedict Arnold might plausibly have argued
| that it was those on the side he betrayed who were guilty of
| treason; Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were actually convicted of
| conspiracy to engage in espionage._
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| Treason has a high bar in the us, though north Korea is one of
| the few countries you could get involved with that could land
| you a treason charge, I believe a state of war still exists
| between the us and noko.
|
| "Treason consists... only of levying war against the United
| States or adhering to its enemies by providing them aid and
| comfort."
| ericzawo wrote:
| I cannot believe North Korean hackers are having better luck
| finding a job these days than I am.
| viraptor wrote:
| It's less individual NK hackers and more "an established, well
| funded interview cheating pipeline" that lands jobs.
| arm32 wrote:
| I can't believe an actual engineer accepted this low of a
| salary!
|
| Actual engineer:
| servercobra wrote:
| Yup it's definitely an organized group(s). I've gotten so
| many automated resumes that try different styles, locations,
| and keywords that I suspect are largely the same group or
| two. We even had one candidate join a Zoom as the wrong name
| (who had also applied!), realize his mistake, leave, and
| rejoin as the correct name.
| charliebwrites wrote:
| It would be interesting to see what these hackers are doing in
| interviews such that they're landing so many jobs
|
| There's probably even recorded interviews out there with the
| candidates as data
| markus_zhang wrote:
| They are extremely talented. One of my Chinese friends told me
| that one of the interviewees he got knew enough about X11 to
| impress everyone, but then shocked them by showing on camera
| wearing NK uniform. Apparently he didn't get the job.
| standardUser wrote:
| Only 8 1/2 years? I guess this is what you'd call "light
| treason".
| rwmj wrote:
| Yes, arguably this is much worse than someone leaking documents
| to the Russians (Alrdich Ames got a life sentence), because it
| enables many people to become spies.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| And if the gig doesn't work out, there's always money in the
| banana stand, Michael.
| dialup_sounds wrote:
| Shout out to the person that already registered
| bananastand.ai, may your valuation be high and your
| acquisition be swift.
| WorldPeas wrote:
| I'm sure there was some sympathy for her former homelessness
| (unmentioned in this article). She was very much an unknowing
| actor who thought she was a "tech worker" and having never been
| part of this or around it likely thought her life was perfectly
| normal.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/the-everyday-americ...
| yardie wrote:
| When you hire a 10x developer who is literally 10x developers :-D
| tedggh wrote:
| Sounds pretty excessive. Not familiar with the whole story, but
| given how painful is to clear an interview process let alone
| receive an offer makes me think people at some of these companies
| had to be involved in the scam.
| kube-system wrote:
| Why would they need to be involved in the scam? A hiring
| manager or recruiter is already incentivized to hire. This is
| the danger in hiring people who are fully remote without
| meeting them in person, which some companies do.
| midtake wrote:
| Not involved, but when a company is getting an engineer for 70k
| who passes the interview, that company is suddenly not that
| interested in their background.
| MrCoffee7 wrote:
| Non-paywalled article on this case:
| https://fortune.com/2025/07/24/north-korean-it-workers-chapm...
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Since https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/american-
| sentenced-to-8-year... appears hardwalled and no one has
| supplied an archive link, I've switched the top URL to this.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Serious question, if she had been a front for Americans or say
| German nationals - what would be the charges and sentencing?
| kube-system wrote:
| I don't know about Germans, but I do know Americans can legally
| work in America. There wouldn't be much of a "front" required.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Maybe an American wants to be over-employed, has felony
| convictions, wants to work in ITAR field but married to
| Russian immigrant, whatever. Some reason to launder the
| identity.
|
| How much worse is the crime because of North Korea? Would it
| be markedly different for Russia/Iran vs a formerly close
| ally like Canada.
| 8note wrote:
| i expect its also a sanctions violation, not just fraud in
| this case.
| gleenn wrote:
| Maybe similar to how they caught Al Capone: tax evasion.
| Clearly they wouldn't be paying taxes.
| mosferatu wrote:
| Why is N. Korea in this respect treated as a boogeyman? Chinese
| literally do this all the time everywhere, and they're a far
| greater threat given their government is malicious AND competent.
| But NK seems to be the punching bag even though they're not that
| big of a deal.
| ripped_britches wrote:
| I think you are greatly misinformed.
|
| China has literally millions (tens of millions?) of hardworking
| engineers that do their job and get a paycheck
|
| NK has zero of these people. They are basically a sovereign
| crime syndicate. They get hired and then extort or exfiltrate
| from their employers.
|
| You might be exposed to some of the rampant anti-Chinese
| propaganda.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Because Best Korea is politically/diplomatically permissible.
| No one gives a shit if the North Korean government is painted
| as the bad guy (maybe not even the North Korean government!).
|
| However, this is 110% the opposite for China and the Chinese
| government. They are not permissible as the bad guy. So much so
| that it scuttled a Hollywood reboot of an action movie a decade
| ago (Red Dawn). Hollywood is on a short leash, but don't be
| fooled into thinking the capitulation ends there. Even our own
| politicians know better. If one were generous (I'm not inclined
| towards generosity) one might wonder if the politicians know
| that our economy is hostage to the CCP and do not wish to see
| us harmed, but the more likely explanation is that there's soft
| corruption that persuades them to sell us down the river.
|
| The Chinese have worked hard, tirelessly even, for more than
| half a century, to make it very difficult to say anything bad
| about them without repercussions, even in countries far outside
| China's obvious sphere of influence. North Korea needs to
| invest in global propaganda efforts if it wishes to get off the
| jerkwar list...
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| >The Chinese have worked hard, tirelessly even, for more than
| half a century, to make it very difficult to say anything bad
| about them without repercussions, even in countries far
| outside China's obvious sphere of influence.
|
| China's government fucking sucks.
|
| There, that wasn't so hard, was it?
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| You don't matter. But if you did, you'd've just screwed
| yourself. I hope you're not an NBA basketball player hoping
| to sponge up some extra millions in the off-season, or any
| sort of athlete at all. Any type of celebrity either. And
| if you were talented enough that a Chinese company might
| want to hire you, then this comment would be found with
| certainty.
| recipe19 wrote:
| Huh? Chinese citizens are free to apply to jobs in the Western
| world, and most companies are happy to hire them. Also, while
| the Chinese intelligence apparatus undoubtedly has easier
| access to Chinese nationals, the vast majority of these workers
| are not a part of a state-run syndicate to circumvent sanctions
| (or worse).
|
| The NK thing is a fundamentally different scenario: you have
| people you're not allowed to hire lying to you and stealing
| identities to get hired. That's an obvious problem in itself,
| and the fact that it's orchestrated by the NK government to
| benefit the regime is only making it worse.
|
| There are other parties that probably do the same, but NK is
| the industry leader, so to speak.
| sampton wrote:
| It's not that easy fronting a job. I can't imagine one person
| going through all the interviews and juggle all the
| communication. Might as well just start your own agency with
| contractors from India or Philippines.
| WorldPeas wrote:
| I think it is a critical omission by this article of this woman's
| former homelessness. Not that we need to re-litigate that
| homelessness as a national security issue (though some more
| urgency may be nice), but this woman is not some unsympathetic
| traitor, most of what she was doing was over her head. If you
| watch a few of her tiktok videos, she doesn't seem to clued into
| what's happening and happy to be normal. It's a shame that it
| came to this, but I imagine this has happened in other cases that
| didn't involve state-actors.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/the-everyday-americ...
| lostmsu wrote:
| Why is it critical? Is there a causation link between
| homelessness and treason?
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| They're saying that having large numbers of a vulnerable and
| often disabled population on the brink of day to day survival
| is a national security risk because they are easily targeted
| and exploitable.
|
| You don't need to find a causal relation to treason
| specifically to understand. They may not even be aware of
| what they are involved in.
| moomin wrote:
| You're making a very good point here. We've always known
| that malign forces of various varieties will exploit the
| vulnerable in society, and we've definitely experimented
| with trying to imprison every last one of the vulnerable
| sucked into criminality. The War of Drugs has pretty
| definitively demonstrated this strategy doesn't work.
| Poverty has been a national security issue for some time.
| e_i_pi_2 wrote:
| OP does address why it's critical:
|
| > Not that we need to re-litigate that homelessness as a
| national security issue
|
| Without this it's easy to think that this was just a bad
| actor we could have caught, instead of just a symptom of a
| deeper issue not being addressed
|
| I'd be more surprised if there isn't a causal link between
| homelessness and making bad choices - I don't think it's
| really disputed that there's a causal link between
| homelessness and crime in general.
| rdtsc wrote:
| No doubt the NK comrades will take care of her and put extra cash
| in the prison commissary for chips and pretzels.
|
| I wonder if she fully knew how much trouble she could get in and
| just thought she wouldn't get caught. Or, it was more of a "I am
| just helping out these nice fellers get jobs. No big deal, I am
| not bothering anyone" case.
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(page generated 2025-07-24 23:00 UTC)