U.S. imposes sanctions on North Korean network funding weapons programs through IT workers
Published: 17 Jan. 2025, 11:09
![This image, captured from a State Department account on X, shows an offer of a reward for information on North Korean IT firms and workers. [SCREEN CAPTURE]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/01/17/e7984e18-bfd6-4e98-ad5f-0d3f00d8cd3b.jpg)
This image, captured from a State Department account on X, shows an offer of a reward for information on North Korean IT firms and workers. [SCREEN CAPTURE]
The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on two North Koreans and four entities to target a network that uses North Korean IT workers to generate revenue for the recalcitrant regime's weapons programs.
The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Department 53 of the Ministry of the People's Armed Forces, a North Korean state arms trading entity; two of its front companies — Korea Osong Shipping and Chonsurim Trading — and Liaoning China Trade Industry, a China-based firm.
The two individuals added to the sanctions list are Jong In-chol, the president of Chonsurim's North Korean IT worker delegation in Laos, and Son Kyong-sik, the China-based chief representative of Osong.
"The DPRK continues to rely on its thousands of overseas IT workers to generate revenue for the regime, to finance its illegal weapons programs, and to enable its support of Russia's war in Ukraine," Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley Smith said. DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"The United States remains resolved to disrupt these networks, wherever they operate, that facilitate the regime's destabilizing activities."
The department said that Department 53 generates revenue using front companies in a variety of industrial sectors, including IT and software development.
Osong has maintained delegations of North Korean IT workers in Laos since at least 2022, while Chonsurim has directed an additional group of North Korean IT workers in Laos to use falsified identification credentials to undertake software development and other IT work for companies around the world, according to the department.
Liaoning China Trade has shipped to Department 53 equipment that enables it to conduct its IT worker activities abroad, the department said.
The department pointed out that Pyongyang dispatches thousands of highly skilled IT workers around the world with orders to generate revenue for the North Korean government to circumvent U.S. and UN sanctions.
The North Korean regime withholds up to 90 percent of the wages earned by these overseas workers, thereby generating annual revenue of hundreds of millions of dollars for the Kim regime's weapons programs, it said.
Yonhap
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.
Standards Board Policy (0/250자)