Maryland man sentenced for N. Korea IT worker scheme involving US government contracts

A 40-year-old Maryland man has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for his role in a scheme where he allowed North Korean nationals to use his identity to work in software development roles at several U.S. government agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Minh Phuong Ngoc Vong will also have to serve three years of supervised release as part of his plea agreement with the Justice Department. 

Court documents said Vong allowed North Korean nationals to use his name to apply for technology positions at U.S. companies. Between 2021 and 2024, Vong was paid more than $970,000 in salary at 13 different U.S. companies, several of which contracted his services to U.S. government agencies. All of the software development work he was hired to do was performed by North Korean nationals based overseas, according to prosecutors. 

The case represents just part of Pyongyang’s efforts to fund itself through worker scams. North Korea’s government, facing broad international sanctions, has allegedly earned hundreds of millions of dollars through such operations. 

In 2023, Vong’s name was used by North Koreans to get hired at a Virginia tech company that required applicants to be U.S. citizens. Vong lied about his credentials on his resume and participated in an interview where he verified his identity with a Maryland license and U.S. passport. 

Vong was hired at the company and assigned to work at the FAA, where he was supposed to manage software applications used by several U.S. agencies to handle “sensitive information regarding national defense matters.”

The FAA authorized Vong to access government facilities and systems and the company gave him an approved laptop. Vong installed remote access software on the laptop to enable North Koreans to access it and hid the fact that people in China were accessing the device.

From March 2023 to July 2023, North Koreans used Vong’s credentials to perform his job from China, prosecutors said. He was paid about $28,000, which he then sent overseas to the North Korean workers. 

In the guilty plea, Vong said this was not the only company he helped the North Koreans infiltrate. 

Prosecutors said Vong communicated primarily with a foreign national living in Shenyang, China — about 100 miles away from the country’s border with North Korea. 

U.S. officials have said Shenyang is one of the key cities in China where North Korea runs its IT worker schemes. 

This year, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned two Shenyang-based companies — Korea Mangyongdae Computer Technology Company (KMCTC) and Shenyang Geumpungri — for their role in housing North Korean workers, providing them with devices and laundering the money earned from IT roles in the U.S. and other countries. 

The U.S. said it believes Shenyang Geumpungri is working with Korea Sinjin Trading Corporation — an organization housed within North Korea’s Ministry of People’s Armed Forces General Political Bureau.

The Justice Department previously accused Kejia Wang, another U.S. national, with facilitating a North Korean IT worker scheme. Wang, who helped run a laptop farm in New Jersey, personally flew to Shenyang in an effort to organize the operation  in 2023. 

As part of the DOJ-led DPRK RevGen: Domestic Enabler Initiative, U.S. officials have sought to identify and prosecute U.S. citizens helping facilitate the schemes. An Arizona woman was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for running a laptop farm that generated $17 million for the North Korean government.