On September 12, 2024, the UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation issued an advisory to stakeholders in both public and private sectors to highlight the threat posed by North Korean information technology (“IT) workers. According to OFSI, these workers may attempt to gain employment with companies in the United Kingdom, the United States, and elsewhere in an effort order to raise revenue for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“DPRK”). The Advisory provides stakeholders, especially those in the IT, cryptocurrency and electronic money institution, and money services sectors, with a list of red flags and recommendations to help them understand and protect against this threat. Because the DPRK is subject to significant sanctions measures in the United Kingdom, OFSI warns that individuals and entities who employ or pay DPRK IT workers could be directly or indirectly breaching financial sanctions.
According to the Advisory, the DPRK has deployed workers with proficiencies in various IT specialties including software development, IT support, graphic design, and animation. OFSI cautions that these IT workers, who operate primarily from Russia and China, often pose as non-DPRK nationals in search of freelance contracts. They operate through a complex network of companies, masking their links to the DPRK by falsely representing their identities, nationalities and locations. According to OFSI, the DPRK government has used the revenues generated by these workers to purchase goods and military equipment prohibited by the United Nations, and to support DPRK weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.
Stakeholders who suspect that they or others have been the target of a scheme described in the Advisory, are encouraged to report these occurrences to OFSI.