Arizona Woman Jailed 8.5 Years for Running $17M “Laptop Farm” Enabling North Korean IT Spies
Ddos 
Image: DOJ
The U.S. Department of Justice has announced the sentencing of Christina Marie Chapman, a 50-year-old woman from Arizona, for her central role in a multi-million-dollar employment fraud scheme that benefitted North Korean IT workers and their repressive regime.
“Chapman made the wrong calculation: short term personal gains that inflict harm on our citizens and support a foreign adversary will have severe long term consequences,” stated Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti.
Chapman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments in February. On July 24, she was sentenced to 102 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to forfeit over $284,000 and pay nearly $177,000 in restitution.
Her role? Serving as the U.S.-based facilitator for North Korean IT operatives posing as American workers to land remote tech jobs across 309 U.S. companies and two international businesses. These included a top-five television network, a Silicon Valley tech firm, a major aerospace manufacturer, and even two U.S. government agencies, where hiring was fortunately unsuccessful.
Operating from her Litchfield Park, Arizona home, Chapman ran a so-called “laptop farm”, storing and using dozens of corporate-issued laptops to spoof the presence of remote workers in the U.S., while the actual North Korean operatives worked offshore. She shipped 49 laptops overseas, including to a city in China bordering North Korea, and maintained detailed records linking each laptop to a stolen or borrowed U.S. identity.
“Chapman organized and stored U.S. company laptops in her home, and included notes identifying the U.S. company and identity associated with each laptop,” DOJ wrote.
More than 90 laptops were seized during a search in October 2023, unveiling the scope of her collaboration.
Chapman also managed the financial front. She forged payroll checks, facilitated direct deposits of wages into her U.S. accounts, and then funneled the money overseas to DPRK agents. In total, the scheme generated over $17 million in illicit income—supporting both Chapman and the North Korean regime’s cyber warfare and weapons development programs.
The DOJ emphasized that this is one of the largest DPRK IT fraud operations ever charged, involving 68 stolen identities and exploitation of high-trust positions at Fortune 500 companies. With North Korea deploying “thousands of highly skilled IT workers globally,” U.S. companies are increasingly under threat—not just from abroad, but from within their own virtual workforce.
Related Posts:
- $5 Million Reward Offered After Indictment of North Korean Cyber Operatives
- North Korean IT Workers Indicted in Elaborate “Laptop Farm” Scheme to Evade Sanctions
- North Korean Operatives Use GenAI to Infiltrate Global Tech Jobs, Okta Warns
- Dark Web Identity Farming Operation Exposed: A Sophisticated KYC Fraud
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