North Korea allegedly made millions from US companies through remote work scheme
North Korea allegedly made millions from US companies through remote work scheme
Fourteen North Koreans have been charged with fraud in the US over an alleged long-running conspiracy.
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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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.
Depending on the validity of the article, they also did a little extortion in addition to just working, so not just having a job. Not saying that wasn't part of their job on the NK side, but the salary wasn't the only money involved.
... 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.
... 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.
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.
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.
An entire comment based on an incorrect assumption when it is clearly stated that the persons are working for companies run from China and Russia, controlled by North Korea.
North Korea would not allow ordinary civilians to operate (clarification: by this, I mean control) such corporations internationally. If they did, it would be impossible for them to control the land in the way they do, because people would have an outlet, an alternative to escape any mandated way of doing things, in a way which would not have such a high chance of… severe consequence. Like death.
This comment expresses the post is akin to having a hatred for the North Korean economy having a little more money. North Korea doesn't exactly follow that kind of economy. It relies less on people spending and more on people… working. Any money in the economy is not heavily channeled into civilian investment… like you have in most countries in the world. If it did, it would be impossible in a very absolute sense to have total control over a land to prevent most of the people who want to leave from leaving, setting aside even those who want to leave but cannot leave due to a number of personal circumstances.
Lastly, you could've made your two comments in a less aggressive way. You've implied an agenda from the poster without elaborating with a satisfactory reason. The article or the poster made no mention of US sanctions, and there is no indication the poster has anything against people from North Korea having money for personal use. The economy statement also relies on the assumption of the running of the North Korean economy from the perspective that it runs as a mostly public investment based economy.
I have already expressed my doubts as to the trustworthiness of the article's sources regarding the companies in question being controlled by North Korea directly, so I don't understand why you'd reference the very same article as a justification as to why my suspicions are wrong.
The rest of your post is a lot of stuff that I've heard time and time again. Things like "North Korea is a dystopian hellscape where everyone is dying to leave or dying outright" is the kind of thing that I keep seeing people state as though it's common sense. That is to say, it's obvious, and needs no further thought or consideration. And the way NK is described, you'd think it was the perfection of totalitarianism, with scarcely any flaws in its population control. I find this level of success a difficult sell. This is all worsened by the fact that the United States has a vested interest in people believing that places like China and NK are basically Mordor. Put them all together, and I'd hope you can see why I might not take this all at face value.
But I'm honestly not interested in debating if North Korea's really as hellish as so many have said. I think it's an awful country with an awful, dictatorial government, and whether or not it's as awful as is claimed is not something I care for. I can't fix the place.
But I do care for the defaulting assumption of bad faith on my part and repeated uncharitable readings of my posts. I at no point ever made any claims about Tardigrada, nor have I cast any doubt upon their character anywhere in this thread. My criticisms were aimed squarely at the article and the sources it used. Coming back to this thread to see paragraphs written at me and everyone else with a similar opinion to me that do feel like they cast doubt upon my character is not a fun thing to see in my inbox when I come to the site.
Would you take a YouTuber's word on it?