The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned six people and two entities for their alleged roles in a North Korean scheme to defraud IT workers, often targeting the crypto industry.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said Thursday it has sanctioned alleged facilitators of fraud networks of IT workers in North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Spain that generate income to finance North Korea’s weapons program.
OFAC accused Amnokgang Technology Development Company, a DPRK company accused of managing IT staff abroad, and Nguyen Quang Viet, CEO of Quangvietdnbg International Services Company Limited, a Vietnamese company, of laundering $2.5 million through cryptocurrency for the network.
Do Phi Hanh, Hoang Van Nguyen, Yun Song Guk, Hoang Min Quang and York Luis Celestino Herrera were also sanctioned for their alleged roles in networks of DPRK IT personnel.
These sanctions mean that all U.S. assets linked to the named individuals are frozen and they cannot conduct any financial transactions or do business with the U.S. under threat of civil and criminal penalties.
Fraudulent technologists with ties to North Korea are very active, targeting a number of industries, including blockchain companies. A report from April 2025 by Google revealed that the infrastructure of the plans is spread around the world.
Fraud is a growing threat to workers: Chainalysis
OFAC’s sanctions include 21 cryptocurrency addresses across Ethereum and Tron. Chainalysis said Thursday that “the assignment of addresses to multiple blockchain networks reflects North Korea’s increasingly multi-chain approach to money transfers.”
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Chainalysis added that the schemes of North Korean IT workers “represent a complex and growing threat” that rely on stolen identities and fake identities to gain employment with legitimate global companies.
“In addition to generating income through fraudulent employment, these workers are also known to inject malware into company networks to mine private and confidential information,” the company said.
“Cryptocurrency entrepreneurs should check all of their partners against OFAC’s updated sanctions lists, be alert for patterns consistent with IT fraud, and monitor unusual payment patterns.”
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