American jailed for helping North Koreans get jobs at Nike

Four years ago, gig work for North Korean agents turned Christina Chapman’s life around. On Friday it cost the Arizona woman an 8½-year prison sentence.

The ‘laptop farm’ at Christina Chapman’s Arizona home.

Four years ago, gig work for North Korean agents turned Christina Chapman’s life around. On Friday (AEST), it cost the Arizona woman an 8½-year prison sentence.

Chapman was given the sentence, by a federal judge in Washington, DC, for operating a “laptop farm” – a room in her house filled with computers that North Korean scammers used to connect remotely to more than 300 US companies over two years.

Among the companies that the North Koreans – who were working on behalf of their cash-strapped government – infiltrated was Nike. Chapman’s operation earned North Korea more than $US17m ($25.8m), prosecutors said.

Chapman’s work, which helped the former waitress and massage therapist move out of a Minnesota trailer and buy a four-bedroom house in Arizona, is part of what government officials describe as a far-reaching effort by North Korea to take advantage of remote work opportunities in the US.

The problem is widespread and over the past year has alarmed cybersecurity experts because the North Koreans don’t simply collect pay cheques. They steal data and try to extort their former employers, prosecutors have said.

“We’ve got companies that have given some of these people great employee references,” said US Attorney Jeanine Pirro. “These workers are writing code for these big American companies.”

A screenshot from a Tiktok video uploaded by Christina Chapman.

Under the sentencing, Chapman was ordered to forfeit more than $US284,000 she had collected for payment to the North Koreans and a fine of $US176,850 – the amount of money prosecutors said she earned as a laptop farmer.

Chapman would help the North Koreans fill out employment documents and provide a US address where corporate laptops and other correspondence could be set.

In the morning, she would turn on racks of computers covered with Post-its that had information about the companies they belonged to. Then North Koreans would log in remotely through Chapman’s farm and work for the companies.

The companies sent pay cheques for the workers to Chapman, who took a cut and deposited the rest into bank accounts accessed by the North Korean government. It used proceeds to fund the country’s weapons program, prosecutors said.

An army of thousands of these workers is earning North Korea hundreds of millions of dollars each year, according to prosecutors.

Nike was one of Chapman’s victims, paying one of her North Korean workers nearly $US75,000 in wages over five months.

That wasn’t only illegal, “it was a betrayal of the trust that we as an organisation extend to every member of our team”, Chris Gharst, a director of global investigations with the company, said in a victim impact statement.

Other victims included the communications platform Jeenie and the North Carolina staffing agency DataStaff.

Chapman’s Arizona home was raided by FBI agents in October 2023, shutting down her operation. In February, she pleaded guilty to fraud, money laundering and identity theft.

Chapman apologised to her victims in a statement filed with the court before her sentencing. She took the job, she said, because it allowed her to be with her mother, who was then sick with cancer.

“The area where we lived didn’t provide for a lot of job opportunities that fit what I needed,” she said.

The Wall Street Journal