Photo/Illutration The Metropolitan Police Department headquarters in Tokyo (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The Metropolitan Police Department on April 7 announced it referred two Japanese men to prosecutors on suspicion of providing their personal identification and financial information to an individual claiming to be North Korean. 

It is investigating the possibility that this may be part of illegal foreign currency acquisition activities by “North Korean information technology workers” who obtain IT-related jobs under false identities. 

The MPD has not disclosed whether the 32-year-old company employee who lives in Oita and 34-year-old business owner residing in Tokyo’s Kita Ward have admitted to the charges. 

According to the MPD, both men had already been acquainted with the individual claiming to be North Korean for seven years before sending this third man images of their driver's licenses and bank account numbers. This was done via a messaging app in September and October 2020. 

Someone then impersonated the two men and illegally created accounts on a major crowdsourcing website, the MPD believes.

The MPD said the impersonator received a work opportunity apparently placed by a Japanese company, through this website.

Then remuneration was transferred to bank accounts under the pair's names. 

They took approximately 10 percent as a commission before transferring the remainder to an overseas bank account designated by their acquaintance.

This particular website's system does not require users to register any identification when creating an account before accepting job postings. However, investigators pointed out the perpetrators may have done this in an attempt to raise their credibility in the eyes of clients.

NUCLEAR FUNDING

This is not an isolated case as the National Police Agency issued an alert in March 2024 warning of this scheme. 

North Korean IT workers have been suspected of posing as Japanese, registering on online platforms, such as crowdsourcing sites, and taking on projects for Japanese companies.

According to the NPA, many North Koreans in IT are highly specialized and are believed to have applied for a wide range of jobs creating websites and applications.

They sometimes pretend to be working in Japan while living in China, Russia or Southeast Asia.

To prevent identity theft, the NPA has urged platform operators to rigorously examine identification documents and thoroughly confirm user identities through videoconference interviews.

It also asked operators to introduce a system that notifies users when they register any unusual information.

Similar warnings have been issued in succession overseas.

In May 2022, the United States published guidelines outlining the illicit activities of North Korean IT workers and countermeasures.

South Korea issued similar guidelines in December of the same year.

But what is North Korea’s intention? 

The U.N. Security Council's Sanction Committee on North Korea noted, also in March 2024, that IT workers contribute an estimated $250 million to $600 million (36.9 billion yen to 88.3 billion yen) annually in foreign currency.

The committee suspects these earnings are going toward nuclear and missile development.

Yoichi Furuya, a professor of crisis management at Nihon University who served as a former head of the Kanagawa prefectural police, noted that there is not only the problem of North Korea acquiring foreign currency, but also the risk of sensitive Japanese information being leaked.

“There is no need to stir things up unnecessarily, but it is important to have the right sense of crisis,” he said. “The police need to specifically and continuously alert platform operators and client companies as to what methods will be used to screen them.”

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