By KYOKO DOI/ Staff Writer
May 19, 2022 at 19:04 JST
The headquarters of the Kanagawa prefectural police (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Kanagawa prefectural police referred two people to prosecutors on suspicion they helped a North Korean based in China get paid to develop a smartphone app for a Japanese firm.
A South Korean taxi driver who allowed him to use his name, and a woman who acted as a middleman to send him the money, were referred to prosecutors on May 18 in connection with an illegal transfer of money to the North Korean man, according to police.
Police believe the North Korean man withdrew the funds from an ATM in China with the help of the two, and then he sent the cash back to North Korea.
Both have admitted to the charges and said they acted on the instructions of the North Korean man, according to the investigators.
Police sent documents to prosecutors over the two on suspicion the South Korean man had violated the banking law and that the woman acted as an accomplice by sending funds to the North Korean by giving him a debit card connected to her account, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind in Japan.
The announcement came just days after the U.S. government issued a warning that North Korean IT workers are posing as nationals in other countries to secure programming work to circumvent sanctions and remit funds back to their home country.
The South Korean man, 57, a resident of Yokohama, works there as a taxi driver, while the woman, 75, is unemployed and lives in Tokyo’s Kita Ward.
The North Korean man has been registered as an IT engineer since 2019 under the name of the South Korean man through a Japanese service that matches clients with freelancers for developing smartphone apps.
He took a contract job with a Japanese company through the service and the South Korean received remuneration for the work.
In June 2019, the South Korean taxi driver deducted a 10 percent commission of around 191,000 yen ($1,490) from the total amount made from the work, about 1.91 million yen, and sent the rest to the woman’s account.
The taxi driver is suspected of illegally sending that money so the North Korean man could withdraw the funds in Chinese yuan from an ATM.
The woman is suspected of sending the North Korean man a debit card linked to her account under her name and helping him withdraw the money.
Using a debit card like this means that the currency would not need to be exchanged, as it allows a card holder to withdraw money in the local currency from an account at an ATM.
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