New US sanctions on North Korean IT worker scheme issued

Half a dozen individuals and a pair of companies in North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Spain have been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control over their involvement with North Korea's global fake IT worker scheme that funds the country's weapons programs, CBS News reports.

Leading the sanctioned list are North Korean IT firm Amnokgang Technology Department Company, which has been accused of deploying its workers overseas to obtain military and commercial technology, and Nguyen Quang Viet, the CEO of Quangvietdnbg International Services Company Limited in Vietnam, who allegedly laundered nearly $2.5 million of illicit proceeds, including those from the IT worker scheme, for North Koreans between 2023 and 2025.

The U.S Treasury has also sanctioned North Korean Yun Song Guk, who allegedly led Laos-based operations of a group of freelance IT workers tasked to coordinate malicious payments and contracts for partners, and several others who purportedly helped transfer or conceal illicit proceeds.