“South Korea and U.S. Impose Independent Sanctions on North Korea’s IT and Foreign Currency Earning Activities”

The Korean government is busily moving to block foreign currency earning by IT personnel, which is a means of securing illegal funds for North Korea’s nuclear and missile development.

To increase the effectiveness of sanctions against North Korea in this regard, we have also strengthened independent sanctions at the ROK-US level.

Reporter Jo Soo-hyun reports.

[기자]

North Korea’s illegal foreign currency earning activities that the government has been keeping an eye on are largely two.

Stealing virtual currency through hacking and obtaining work from overseas IT companies such as the US with a forged identity.

As the number of such IT personnel increases, not only does illegal nuclear and missile development funds increase, but there is also a great concern that more information power may flow into North Korea.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is urging companies to be cautious and recommending methods such as video interviews to uncover them, but sometimes a creative approach is also required.

In fact, there have been cases where employers have given up employment when employers send and receive contracts by mail in order to verify the employee’s home address.

There are also cases in which the South Korean and US governments found an account suspected of being a North Korean IT worker on a US job search site and requested cooperation from the site to block the account.

[김건 / 외교부 한반도평화교섭본부장 : 북한판 IT ‘골드 러시’는 반드시 실패해야 합니다. 우리는 북한이 불법적인 IT 활동을 통해 단 한 푼도 벌어들이지 못하도록 해야 합니다.]

At the same time, the South Korean and US governments introduced independent sanctions against organizations and individuals involved in overseas foreign currency earning activities by North Korean IT personnel.

The South Korean government sanctioned three North Korean agencies and seven individuals, and the United States sanctioned four agencies and one individual.

The Jinyeong Information Technology Development Cooperation Company and its general manager, Kim Sang-man, were on the list of sanctions in both countries.

It is explained that it is expected that the effect will be enhanced by comprehensively sanctioning not only organizations and human resources that directly led foreign currency earning, but also human resource training institutions and helpers.

South Korea and the U.S. plan to strengthen measures to impose overlapping sanctions on the same target in order to increase the effectiveness of sanctions against North Korea.

This is YTN Cho Soo-hyun.

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