How an Arizona woman helped North Korean workers infiltrate US companies
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This isn’t some headline-grabbing new Netflix series. This actually happened in a quiet neighborhood called Litchfield Park, about a 20-minute drive from Phoenix.
Christina Chapman, 50, looked like your average middle-aged suburban woman. But in his humble home? A secret cyber operations center built to help North Korean IT operatives infiltrate hundreds of US companies to purchase equipment and vehicles for their military.
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Christina Chapman, 50, of Litchfield Park, Ariz., built a massive cyber operation that helped North Korean actors infiltrate U.S. companies. (Ministry of Justice)
The picture above was just a small part of his setup.
North Korean workers aren’t browsing LinkedIn or applying to Google, Amazon, and Meta. They can’t. The sanctions prevent them from working for American companies, at least legally. So what are they doing?
They are stealing the identities of real Americans, including names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and more. They then use them to pose as remote IT workers and infiltrate US companies that are not on anyone’s radar.
What about when companies send laptops and phones to “remote new hires”? These devices cannot exactly be sent to Pyongyang.
Enter Christina
For three years, Christina turned her suburban home into a covert operations center for North Korea’s elite cybercriminals.
He received more than 100 laptops and smartphones shipped from companies all over the United States. These were not anonymous initiatives. We’re talking major American banks, top tech firms, and at least one US government contractor.
They all thought they were hiring remote workers based in the US. In fact, they had no idea that they were taking North Korean agents on board.
Once the equipment arrived, Chapman connected the devices to VPNs, remote desktop tools like AnyDesk and Chrome Remote Desktop, and even installed voice-altering software.
Aim? To make it look like the North Koreans were entering from inside the United States. Chapman also shipped 49 laptops and other devices supplied by US companies to locations abroad; These include several shipments to a Chinese city on the border with North Korea.
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Chapman’s fake employees were “showing up” every day from halfway around the world and funneling American money and technology directly to the Kim regime. (Ministry of Justice)
follow the money
These fake employees “appeared” every day from around the world, sending code, answering emails, attending meetings. In effect, they were funneling US technology and money directly to Kim Jong Un’s regime.
When HR teams asked for video verification, Chapman didn’t bat an eyelid.
Sometimes he jumped on camera himself, in costume, pretending to be the person on the resume. He ran the entire operation like a talent agency for cybercriminals, arranging fake job interviews, coaching operators on what to say, and even laundering their salaries through U.S. banks.
His idea? At least $800,000 paid as a “service fee.”
Total distance to North Korea? More than $17 million in wages were stolen, according to the FBI, which called the scheme a national security threat. Chapman described it as “helping his friends.” Really.
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North Korea stole more than $17 million in wages thanks to Chapman’s scheme. (REUTERS/Edgar Su)
Eventually the fraud started to emerge. Investigators noticed strange patterns, such as dozens and dozens of remote hires all listing the same Arizona address, or company systems being accessed from countries that employees had supposedly never visited.
Chapman was arrested and sentenced to 102 months in federal prison in July 2025.
And the craziest part? He did it all from his living room. Talk about working from home!
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