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AUGUSTA, Ga. – In a significant federal court ruling, three men have been sentenced after admitting to facilitating access for North Korean workers to U.S.-based computer networks.
The defendants each entered guilty pleas to charges of Wire Fraud Conspiracy, as announced by U.S. Attorney Margaret E. “Meg” Heap for the Southern District of Georgia on Friday.
Alexander Paul Travis, 35, received a 12-month prison sentence, followed by three years of supervised release, and was ordered to surrender $193,265. At the time of the offense, Travis was an active-duty soldier stationed at Fort Gordon, and he reportedly gained at least $51,397 from his involvement in the scheme.
Meanwhile, Jason Salazar, 30, from Clovis, California, and Audricus Phagnasay, 25, of Fresno, California, received sentences that included forfeitures of $409,879 and $681,926, respectively. Salazar and Phagnasay reportedly profited by at least $3,450 and $4,500 each.
The defendants admitted that they were approached by international information technology workers who requested their assistance. They allowed these workers to fabricate resumes with false credentials under the defendants’ names, facilitating the workers’ ability to secure remote jobs with U.S. companies. This deception enabled the workers to pass employer screenings, such as video interviews, drug tests, and fingerprinting. Additionally, bank accounts were opened in the defendants’ names to process payments from these U.S. employers.
Each then received a laptop computer from the company that hired the fictitious worker, and would install unauthorized software to enable the overseas IT worker to access the computers remotely, while appearing to work from the defendant’s address in the United States.
The fraudulent scheme resulted in approximately $1.28 million in salary payments from the victim U.S. companies, the vast majority of which were sent to the IT workers overseas.
“These defendants facilitated a scheme to deceive U.S. companies into hiring foreign remote IT workers,” said FBI Georgia Acting Special Agent in Charge Peter Ellis. “The FBI will continue to work with our partners to expose and mitigate these fraudulent IT schemes and provide support to victims of North Korean cyber actors.”
The FBI Augusta (Georgia) Resident Agency is investigating the cases, and the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, Assistant U.S. Attorney L. Alexander Hamner for the Southern District of Georgia and Trial Attorney Jacques Singer-Emery of the NSD National Security Cyber Section are prosecuting the cases.