Arizona Woman Gets 8 Years in Prison for Running ‘Laptop Farm’ for North Koreans

Christina Chapman, age 50, was sentenced to eight years in prison and other fines for defrauding 309 U.S. businesses in collaboration with North Koreans.

The North Korean flag flies above the North Korean Embassy in Beijing on March 28, 2018. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

WASHINGTON—A woman from Arizona has been sentenced to eight years in federal prison for helping North Korean technology workers steal the identities of U.S. citizens to obtain employment in the country.

Christina Marie Chapman, aged 50, was a resident of Litchfield Park in Arizona—a suburb of Phoenix—who created a “laptop farm” at her home, where she would receive computers shipped by U.S. corporations allegedly to their “virtual employees” and operate them with U.S.-based IP addresses.

The work of those companies, however, was being performed by North Korean citizens based abroad, who obtained employment using 68 false identities of U.S. citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents and, thereafter, defrauded the companies where they worked.

In total, Chapman helped North Koreans secure jobs at 309 companies.

“The impacted companies included a top five major television network, a Silicon Valley technology company, an aerospace manufacturer, an American car maker, a luxury retail store, and a U.S media and entertainment company,” the Department of Justice (DOJ) wrote in a press release about Chapman’s plea.

The DOJ also noted that North Koreans, via Chapman, attempted to obtain employment with U.S. government agencies.

Chapman and the North Korean workers, who may have acted at the behest of their government, which is hostile to the United States, earned more than $17 million from the scheme.

She pleaded guilty to three felony counts: conspiracy to commit wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments.

Apart from her 102-month, or 8 1/2-year, prison sentence, Chapman was required to forfeit $284,555 received by the North Koreans, pay an additional judgment of $176,850, and serve three years of supervised release.

The United States believes that the North Korean government, an authoritarian regime headed by Kim Jong-un, uses the U.S. dollar revenue gained from defrauding U.S. companies to support its production of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

“In many cases, these ballistic missiles have been unlawfully transferred to Russia, where they have been used to strike Ukrainian territory, including Kyiv,” the U.S. Department of State wrote in a press release on a separate matter.

“If this happened to these big banks, to these Fortune 500, brand-name, quintessential American companies, it can or is happening at your company. Corporations failing to verify virtual employees pose a security risk for all,” wrote Jeanine Pirro, the Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

“You are the first line of defense against the North Korean threat.”