North Korea sent me abroad to be a secret IT worker. My salaries funded the regime

Gin-su says he has used hundreds of fake IDs over the years to apply for remote IT works with Western companies. It was part of a huge undercover scheme to raise North Korea.

Juggling multiple jobs in the US and Europe would make it at least $ 5,000 (£ 3.750 pounds) a month, he told the BBC in a rare interview. Some colleagues, he said, would win a lot more.

Before refuting, gin -su – whose name has been changed to protect its identity – is one of the thousands that is thought to have been sent abroad to China and Russia, or to countries in Africa and elsewhere, to participate in the shady operation, managed by the secret North Korea.

The North Korean IT workers have been carefully watched and few have talked to the media, but Jin-su gave extensive BBC testimony, giving an revealing view of what everyday life is for those who work and how they work. His first -hand account confirms a large part of the evaluated UN and Cybersecurity reports.

He said 85% of the earned was sent back for financing the regime. North Korea, linked to money, has been under international sanctions for years.

“We know it’s like a robbery, but we just take it as our fate,” said Jin-su, “it’s still much better than when we were in North Korea.”

Secret IT workers generate $ 250 million-$ 600 million a year for North Korea, according to a UN Security Council report, published in March 2024. The scheme flourished in the pandemic when remote work became common and has since increased, since then, authorities and cyber-protection warned.

Most workers are after a stable salary to send back to the regime, but in some cases they have stolen data or have hacked their employers and have requested ransom.

Last year, US court has charged 14 North Koreans Anyone who has supposedly won $ 88 million and has worked in concealing and blackmailing US companies for a six -year period.

Four more North Koreans who have allegedly used fraudulent identities to provide a remote IT job for a cryptocurrency company in the United States have been charged last month.

Jin-u was an IT worker for the regime in China several years before defect. He and his colleagues would work most in teams in 10, he told the BBC.

Internet access is restricted to North Korea, but abroad these IT workers can work easily. They must cover up their nationality not only because they can receive more pay by presenting themselves to Westerners, but because of the extensive international sanctions subjected to North Korea, mainly in response to their nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

This scheme is separate from North Korea’s hacking operations, which also raise money for the regime. Earlier this year, Lazarus Group – a scandalous hacking group that understands it works for North Korea, although they have never recognized it – are estimated to have stolen $ 1.5 billion ($ 1.1 billion) from the cryptocurrency companyS

Gin-sugates most of his time in an attempt to provide fraudulent identities he could use to apply for a job. He will first pose as Chinese and contact people in Hungary, Turkey and other countries to ask them to use their identity in exchange for a percentage of his revenue, he told the BBC.

“If you put an” Asian person “in this account, you will never get a job.”

He will then use these busy identities to approach the people in Western Europe for their identity, which he would use to apply for jobs in the US and Europe. Jin-SU often found a success to the United Kingdom citizens.

“With a little chat, people in the UK convey their identity so easily,” he said.

IT workers who speak better English sometimes deal with the application process. But workplaces on freelancer sites also do not necessarily require face -to -face interviews, and often daily interactions are conducted on platforms like Slack, which makes it easier to pretend to be someone you are not.

Gin-su told the BBC that it is mostly aimed at the US market, “because salaries are higher in US companies.” He claims that so many IT workers find a job, often companies would inadvertently hire more than one North Korean. “It happens a lot,” he said.

Of course, IT workers collect their revenue through networks of facilitators based in the West and China. Last week, American woman was sentenced to more than eight years in prison For crimes related to supporting North Korean IT workers, they find a job and send them money.

BBC cannot independently check the specificity of JIN-SU’s readings, but via PSCOREAn organization that is advocating for human rights in North Korea, we have read the testimony from another IT worker who defects who supports Jin-su.

The BBC also talks to a different defector, Hyun-Zung Lee, who met with the North Koreans working in it while he travels as a businessman for the regime in China. He confirmed that they had similar experiences.

The BBC talks to numerous hiring managers in the cybersecurity and software development sector, who say they have noticed dozens of candidates suspected of being North Korean IT workers during the hiring processes.

Rob Henley, co -founder of Ally Security in the United States, was recently hired for a series of remote vacancies in his company and believes he had interviewed up to 30 North Korean IT workers in the process. “Initially, it was like a game to some extent, like trying to find out who was real and who was fake, but it became quite annoyingly quite quickly,” he said.

In the end, he resorted to ask for video call candidates to show him that it was the day they were.

“We only hired US candidates for these positions. It had to be at least slightly out. But I never saw daylight.”

Back in March, Dawid Moczadło, co -founded by Lab Lab Vidoc based in Poland, shared a video from an interview for a remote work he conducts, where the candidate seems to use artificial intelligence software to cover up his face. He said that after talking to experts, he believes that the candidate can be a worker in North Korea.

We contacted the North Korean Embassy in London to make their claims in this story. They did not answer.

North Korea has been sending its workers abroad for decades to win the state foreign currency. Up to 100,000 are employed abroad as factory or restaurant workers, mainly in China and Russia.

After a few years of life in China, Jin-su said he “feelings of retaining” over his suppressing working conditions.

“We were not allowed to go out and we had to stay indoors all the time,” he said. “You can’t do sports, you can’t do what you want.”

However, North Korean IT workers have more freedom to have access to Western media when they are abroad, Jin-su. “You see the real world. When we are abroad, we realize that something is wrong in North Korea.”

However, Jin-su claims that few workers in North Korea are thinking of escaping like he.

“They just take the money and go home, very few people would think about defeat.”

Although they hold only a small part of what they win, it costs a lot in North Korea. Defecting is also extremely risky and difficult. Observation in China means that most are caught. Those several who manage to defect can never see their families again and their relatives could be punished for them.

Gin-su still works in it now, it is defective. He says that the skills he has diverted by working for the regime has helped him set up in his new life.

As he does not work in several jobs with fake personal documents, he wins less than when he worked for the North Korean regime. But since he can keep more than his revenue, he generally has more money in his own pocket.

“I was used to making money by doing illegal things. But now I work hard and make the money I deserve.”