A federal court in St Louis has indicted 14 North Koreans for allegedly being part of a long-running conspiracy aimed at extorting funds from US companies and funneling money to Pyongyang’s weapons programmes.
The wider scheme allegedly involves thousands of North Korean IT workers who use false, stolen, and borrowed identities from people in the US and other countries to get hired and work remotely for US firms.
The indictement says the defendants and others working with them generated at least $88m (£51.5m) for the North Korean regime over a six-year period.
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The prosecutors say the suspects worked for two North Korean-controlled companies - China-based Yanbian Silverstar and Russia-based Volasys Silverstar.
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A federal court in St Louis has indicted 14 North Koreans for allegedly being part of a long-running conspiracy aimed at extorting funds from US companies and funneling money to Pyongyang’s weapons programmes.
Not gonna lie, I don’t really feel comfortable these days taking a U.S. courts’ word on this. Sounds more likely to me that this is just a result of companies that happen to be run from North Korea and that this only “[funnels] money to Pyongyang’s weapons programmes” in the same way that buying something off Amazon “funnels” money to DARPA.
In which case, this only really makes sense to get mad at if you find yourself having particular hate for things like “the North Korean economy having slightly more money in it,” or “U.S. sanctions getting bypassed.” Personally, I don’t care about either. The use of stolen identities is awful if true, sure, so I get being mad about that, but that happens plenty enough domestically, so I’m not really sure why it’s particularly deserving of a news article here.
Would you take a YouTuber’s word on it?
Oh no! People making money by … checks notes … working for it!!
No, I don’t care that they are doing it for a communist regime bent on developing nuclear weapons. The only consistent result of depriving rogue states of money and trade is the starvation of their people. Its a little hard to overthrow or reform a government on an empty stomach.
… involves thousands of North Korean IT workers who use false, stolen, and borrowed identities from people in the US and other countries …
These people didn’t work to earn money their families, they worked for the regime using stolen identities. North Koreans are not even allowed to get in touch with companies (or individuals) in the West, let alone work for them.
I don’t think anyone is disputing that they shouldn’t be stealing identities, but are they in fact doing the work they’re being paid for? That’s just called having a job. It’s not like the US government isn’t using tax money to fund its continued arms development, including nukes.
These people didn’t work to earn money their families, they worked for the regime
Given that in North Korea military jobs are the most stable ways to provide for your family, I’d say both are likely true.
… and yet, North Koreans did this work, and I addressed the money issue from the regime-level down.
Stealing Identities to get work does not imply the ruined the credit of those people. Getting worked up over this is NOT all that far off from getting worked up over immigrant laborers stealing identities so they can work and feed their families, or recieve food stamps or medical care. At least those last two kinda-sorta have victims, and yet I still prefer immigrants be able to eat.
Sorry, you’re not going to be able to get me to buy into the fear-mongering hysteria-machine by apeing thier narratives. I’m not saying your arguments are invalid, just addressing them from the same surface-level reading you gave mine.
