FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino teamed up with acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro to announce the years-long sentence of an Arizona woman convicted of spying for and providing aid to North Korea.
In a major breakthrough in the battle against international cybercrime, 50-year-old Christina Marie Chapman of Arizona has been sentenced to 102 months in federal prison for her role in a scheme that allowed North Korean IT workers to gain access to 309 U.S. companies. Chapman pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including aggravated identity theft, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, wire fraud, identity theft, and bank fraud.
In an X post, Bongino wrote:
Alongside @USAttyPirro, we announced that American citizen Christina Chapman was sentenced to 102 MONTHS in prison for DEFRAUDING 309 US companies and STEALING THE IDENTITIES of 68 Americans. She operated a “laptop farm” from her home, generating more than $17 MILLION for North Korea to fund their nuclear weapons and evade our sanctions. With over 90 LAPTOPS in her home and 49 SHIPPED OVERSEAS, North Korean IT workers were not only earning money for the North Korean government but also accessing US companies’ networks and highly sensitive data.
To our private sector partners, remain on HIGH ALERT. This threat may already have invaded your company, and we urge you to look critically at your remote workforce. Your @FBI released a public service announcement detailing ways you can protect yourselves, and if you suspect your business has been targeted contact us IMMEDIATELY by calling your local FBI field office or reporting it to our Internet Crime Complaint Center at http://IC3.gov.
North Korea is a THREAT to our economic and national security, and we will stop at NOTHING to crush our adversaries. For anyone else thinking about standing up a laptop farm, let what happened to Christina Chapman serve as a reminder that it is a BAD day to be a BAD guy in America. We WILL find you and bring you to justice.
Chapman was indicted in May alongside Ukrainian national Oleksandr Didenko, who operated an online platform called UpWorkSell, Breitbart News added. The service enabled North Korean IT workers to use stolen identities to secure remote employment. Three additional foreign nationals—identified only by their aliases Jiho Han, Haoran Xu, and Chunji Jin—were also charged as part of the same criminal network for conspiracy to commit money laundering.
