Posted on 04/08/2025 9:43:56 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Fortune 500 companies have unwittingly hired thousands of software engineers who claim to be American developers but are actually North Korean citizens using stolen or fake identities. Through legitimate employment, the IT workers are illegally funneling their salaries to Kim Jong Un’s regime to fund prohibited weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs. The U.S. Treasury, State Department, and FBI collectively estimate the IT workers scam has generated hundreds of millions each year since 2018.
About 95% of the résumés Harrison Leggio gets in response to job postings for his crypto startup g8keep are from North Korean engineers pretending to be American, the founder estimates. He even once interviewed a job seeker who claimed to have worked at the same Manhattan-based cryptocurrency exchange as he did, during the time he worked there.
Turns out it was all a ruse: The programming languages the engineer said the company used were incorrect, and he claimed to have floated among teams rather than embedding in a single group, which “wasn’t a thing there,” said Leggio.
Nowadays, Leggio told Fortune he won’t even set up an interview with a candidate who seems promising on paper unless they agree to one final step.
“Say something negative about Kim Jong Un,” Leggio tells potential job candidates, referring to the third-generation authoritarian Supreme Leader of North Korea, officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Through research, Leggio learned insulting the DPRK’s Supreme Leader is forbidden, and North Korean citizens could face serious punishment for showing anything less than reverence.
“The first time I ever did it, the person started freaking out and cursing,” said Leggio.
The job seeker subsequently blocked Leggio across all social media platforms. Now Leggio makes the same request before every single interview.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
Famous Chollima. Huge problem for the IT industry.
Hire qualified older American programmers! Then you won’t be dealing with North Koreans, and your company will thrive!
Wow! A big reason for in-person interviews!
How soon before we have AI receiving salaries?
Now that's clever. I'd hate to be a legit South Korean IT guy though, with this going on. You'd practically have put an insult against Jong Un on your resume to even have a shot at an interview.
RE: You’d practically have put an insult against Jong Un on your resume to even have a shot at an interview.
Do the Norks have their own version of Islam’s Taqiya?
likely why so many people with foreign accent have names like Nancy, John, etc.
China did it, so it seems the NORKS have been taking lessons.
RE: likely why so many people with foreign accent have names like Nancy, John, etc.
Many Chinese and Koreans ( not all, but a lot ) adopt western names when they come to the USA or go to Europe. One reason is convenience. Their names are sometimes hard to pronounce.
And oh yeah, many Americans adopt Chinese names too when they live and work there.
I did not understand your comment. So I looked it up:
FAMOUS CHOLLIMA: The Hidden Cyber Threat Lurking Among Your Remote Hires
That’s why having people come into the office to work is so important.🤔
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