Five U.S. Citizens Plead Guilty to Helping North Korean IT Workers Infiltrate 136 Companies

According to The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ), five individuals have pleaded guilty to aiding North Korea’s illicit IT worker schemes by enabling overseas workers to use U.S. identities to secure jobs with American firms, affecting more than 136 victim companies.

The defendants are Audricus Phagnasay, 24; Jason Salazar, 30; Alexander Paul Travis, 34; Oleksandr Didenko, 28; and Erick Ntekereze Prince, 30, with Phagnasay, Salazar and Travis admitting one count of wire fraud conspiracy, including hosting laptops and installing remote-desktop software to simulate U.S. work. Travis, a current active-duty Army member, received at least $51,397 for his role; Phagnasay and Salazar earned at least $3,450 and $4,500 respectively.

DoJ notes that Didenko, disclosed by DoJ in May 2025, pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft for stealing U.S. identities and supplying them to IT workers, enabling 871 proxy identities and operations across at least three U.S.-based laptop farms, with recovery of more than $1.4 million to be forfeited.

Prince pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy for running Taggcar Inc. to supply “certified” IT workers and for hosting a laptop at his Florida home, earning over $89,000, and the scheme netted more than $2.2 million in revenue for the North Korean regime. In related action, DoJ has filed two civil complaints to forfeit cryptocurrency worth over $15 million seized by the FBI from APT38 assets, with losses cited from multiple July–November 2023 incidents.