Kejia Wang, 42, of Edison, New Jersey, received 108 months. Zhenxing Wang, 39, of New Brunswick, New Jersey, was sentenced to 92 months. Both had pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges including wire fraud, money laundering, and identity theft.
U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton ordered each defendant to serve three years of supervised release. The court also ordered the defendants to forfeit $600,000, of which the United States has already received $400,000, and ordered Kejia Wang to pay $29,236.03 in restitution.
According to the Justice Department, the scheme ran from approximately 2021 until October 2024 and used the stolen identities of at least 80 U.S. persons. The defendants created shell companies, including Hopana Tech LLC, Tony WKJ LLC, and Independent Lab LLC, to receive payments from victim companies, the department said.
The operation generated more than $5 million in revenue for the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, according to the department. Kejia Wang traveled to China twice in 2023 to coordinate with overseas actors and supervised at least five U.S.-based facilitators who hosted hundreds of company laptops at their residences, the department said.
The facilitators used keyboard-video-mouse switches to enable remote access by North Korean workers, the department said, allowing overseas actors to access sensitive employer data. IT workers placed through the scheme gained access to International Traffic in Arms Regulations data from a California-based defense contractor, according to the department.
U.S. victim companies incurred at least $3 million in legal fees, network remediation costs, and other damages, the Justice Department said.
Eight other defendants indicted in June 2025 remain at large. The Department of State's Rewards for Justice program has announced a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to their disruption.