A court in Washington, DC found her guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, identity theft, and money laundering.

Along with the prison time, she will spend three more years under supervision, forfeit over $284,000, and repay $176,850.

FBI Counterintelligence Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky said in a July 24 press release that she played a key part in a plan that brought in around $17 million to fund North Korea’s weapons development. He added:

Even an adversary as sophisticated as the North Korean government can’t succeed without the assistance of willing US citizens like Christina Chapman.

Starting in 2020, Chapman worked with North Korean agents to set up US-based remote jobs for overseas IT workers.

To make it seem like those workers were physically located in the US, she ran a “laptop farm” from her home. She connected dozens of company-issued computers to the internet so that remote users could log in without raising suspicion.

Officials later recovered more than 90 computers from her home. Chapman also sent 49 devices to addresses overseas, including several in a city near North Korea’s border.

Chapman moved the money through her own accounts. She also helped file tax documents and Social Security forms under the names of the people whose identities were being used.

On July 16, Paul Chowles, a former officer from the UK’s National Crime Agency, got 5.5 years for stealing 50 Bitcoin
BTC


$117,214.79

in a Silk Road 2.0 probe. How did the case unfold? Read the full story.

These individuals posed as overseas freelancers and were paid in digital currencies, which were then hidden through various transfer methods.

The Department of Justice began this process after freezing the funds in April 2023. The money is tied to a case involving Sim Hyon Sop, a banker based in China, who is accused of helping North Korea move this income without detection.

The current effort is a civil forfeiture case filed in Washington, DC, on June 5.

The digital assets include cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin
BTC


$104,956.33

, stablecoins like USDC
USDC


$0.9948

and Tether
USDT


$0.9950

, as well as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and Ethereum
ETH


$2,484.24

domain names. The government noted that these funds were collected from multiple blockchain jobs, with the workers using fake documents to avoid being traced back to North Korea.

Matthew Galeotti from the Department of Justice said this case shows how North Korea is trying to use cryptocurrency to get around global restrictions. He added that the department will use all legal options to stop this kind of activity and protect digital financial systems from misuse.

Along with Sim Hyon Sop, another man named Kim Sang Man was also mentioned. He has already been sanctioned by the US Treasury for his role in laundering money for North Korea.

On June 4, US officials announced that they had shut down a dark web platform known as BidenCash. How? Read the full story.