A Maryland man has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for illegally helping individuals in China land remote U.S. information technology (IT) jobs on behalf of North Korea, the Department of Justice announced on Dec. 4.

Minh Phuong Ngoc Vong of Bowie, Maryland, pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. According to prosecutors, the fraud scheme lasted from 2021 to 2024, during which Vong used fraudulent misrepresentations to obtain jobs with at least 13 different U.S. companies and four U.S. government agencies, but the jobs were completed by coconspirators based in China.

Several of the defrauded companies had placed Vong on projects for several U.S. government agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration. As a result, the agencies had unknowingly allowed the defendant’s coconspirators in China access to “sensitive government systems,” prosecutors said.

“By conspiring with a foreign national to infiltrate U.S. companies, Mr. Vong put American businesses, their employees, and our broader economic and national security at risk,” Kelly O. Hayes, U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland, said in a statement on Dec. 4.

Judge Deborah L. Boardman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland sentenced Vong to 15 months in prison for his role in the wire fraud scheme. Following the prison term, Vong will serve three years of supervised release, including six months of home confinement.

Jimmy Paul, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Baltimore field office, said that Vong is the latest individual to be “held accountable for using false identities on behalf of North Korea to infiltrate American companies,” according to a Dec. 4 statement.

In a sentencing memorandum filed in November, prosecutors said that North Korea has employed different schemes to evade U.N. and U.S. sanctions to raise money. One such scheme involves having North Korean IT workers “obtain assistance from persons residing in the United States” to obtain remote employment worldwide using “false, stolen, or borrowed identities.”

Citing a 2024 report by the United Nations Panel of Experts, the court document noted that there were about 3,000 North Korean IT workers overseas and another 1,000 more in North Korea, with most of the $250 million to $600 million in generated income going to Pyongyang.

“There is strong evidence that Mr. Vong’s co-conspirators were, in fact, working for the North Korean government,” the prosecutors wrote.

Vong used company-issued laptops and installed remote-access software on them, creating what prosecutors described as a “laptop farm” that allowed his coconspirators to carry out the necessary tasks.

FBI agents executed a search warrant of her residence in Bowie on May 13, 2024, and found five laptops, four cellphones, and $13,715 in U.S. currency.

“As a result of the fraudulent scheme, Mr. Vong received close to $1 million in salary payments for IT work that he did not perform,” prosecutors wrote.

“More troublingly, Mr. Vong transmitted roughly 70-80 [percent] of the money earned to his North Korean co-conspirators and granted them access to sensitive government systems.”

The court document identified one of Vong’s coconspirators as “John Doe,” also known as “William James,” an individual living in Shenyang, the capital of northeastern China’s Liaoning Province, which borders North Korea.

Vong told prosecutors that he met Doe on an online gaming platform and later agreed to participate in the fraud scheme.

On two occasions, Vong said that he mailed company-issued laptops to Doe in China, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors recommended that the judge sentence Vong to 30 months in prison.

“There is a strong need for general deterrence,” prosecutors wrote.

“A sentence that is too lenient would convey the wrong message to both North Korean IT workers and current and future U.S.-based facilitators that this conduct is tolerated in the U.S. and worth the risk of being caught by U.S. law enforcement.”

Vong’s lawyer didn’t respond by publication time to a request for comment.

Vong’s case isn’t an isolated one. In July, Christina Marie Chapman of Arizona was sentenced to eight years in prison for helping North Korean IT workers steal the identities of U.S. citizens to obtain jobs in the United States.

Chapman was also accused of running a “laptop farm,” and she and her coconspirators earned more than $17 million from the scheme.