In the United States, a 29-year-old Ukrainian man was sentenced to 5 years in prison for helping North Korean IT specialists get jobs at 40 American companies.
In the United States, a 29-year-old Ukrainian man was sentenced to 5 years in prison for helping North Korean IT specialists get jobs at 40 American companies.
In November 2025, Oleksandr Didenko pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, The Hacker News reports .
He stole personal data from US citizens and sold it to IT workers, helping them get jobs at 40 US companies. The salaries he received were later sent to the DPRK regime to finance its weapons programs. Didenko was detained by Polish law enforcement officers in late 2024, after which he was extradited to the US.
The court also ordered Didenko to serve 12 months of supervised release and pay $46,547 in restitution. Last year, he agreed to forfeit more than $1.4 million, including about $181,438 in cash and cryptocurrency seized from him and his accomplices.
According to the case file, since early 2021, the defendant operated a website called Upworksell[.]com, through which foreign IT professionals could buy or rent stolen or borrowed personal data. Using this data, IT workers applied for jobs through freelance platforms located in California and Pennsylvania. Access to the site was blocked by law enforcement on May 16, 2024.
Didenko also paid individuals in the United States to receive and place laptops at their homes in Virginia, Tennessee, and California. The goal was to create the illusion that the employees were inside the country, when in fact they were connecting remotely from countries such as China, where they were physically located.
As part of the criminal scheme, Didenko administered 871 front individuals and facilitated the operation of at least three laptop "farms" in the United States. One of the computers was sent to a farm in Arizona run by Christina Marie Chapman. Chapman was arrested in May 2024 and sentenced to 8.5 years in prison in July 2025 for her participation in the scheme .
He also provided his North Korean clients with access to the U.S. financial system through Money Service Transmitters, which eliminated the need for them to open accounts in U.S. banks. These services were used to transfer salaries to overseas bank accounts. According to officials, Didenko’s clients received hundreds of thousands of dollars for his work.
