Arizona Woman Sentenced to 8.5 Years for Assisting North Korean IT Workers in Accessing 309 U.S. Companies

A court in Arizona **sentenced** 50-year-old Kristina Marie Chapman to eight and a half years in prison for her involvement in a scheme that enabled North Korean IT specialists to infiltrate 309 U.S. companies.

Last spring, Chapman and a Ukrainian citizen, Alexander Didenko, **were charged** with serious crimes, including identity theft, fraud involving electronic communication and personal data, bank fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud against the United States, and money laundering.

Didenko managed an online platform called UpWorkSell that allowed North Koreans to use fake identities to seek remote work in the IT field. The Justice Department had previously confiscated this platform.

The criminal group also included three foreign nationals known by the aliases Jiho Han, Haozhan Xu, and Chunji Jin, all of whom were accused of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

From October 2020 to October 2023, computers used by North Korean IT specialists were housed at Chapman’s residence to ensure the devices appeared to be registered in the U.S. These North Koreans secured positions as remote software and application developers at several Fortune 500 companies across the aerospace, defense, television, and technology sectors.

Through this operation, the perpetrators generated over $17 million in illegal revenue, which they shared with Chapman, who laundered the money through her bank accounts. Chapman also sent 49 laptops and other devices supplied by American companies abroad, including to a Chinese city near the North Korean border. During a raid in the fall of 2023, authorities seized more than 90 laptops from Chapman’s home.

Earlier, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control **imposed sanctions** on a North Korean shell company and three individuals associated with it for their roles in fraudulent schemes. At the end of last month, the American Department of Justice **stopped the operations** of a widespread network that assisted North Korean specialists in securing remote jobs with American firms.

This spring, reports indicated that North Korean IT specialists had **expanded** their activities beyond the U.S. due to increasing sanctions pressure from American authorities, leading them to seek more positions in European companies.