North Korean "Laptop Farm" Scams Target American Companies

The Perfect Scam

AARP

True Crime, Aarp, Fraud, Society & Culture, Scam, Crime, Bobsullivan

4.5 • 980 Ratings

🗓️ 10 October 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Wall Street Journal reporter Robert McMillan and FBI agent Joe Hooper recount the story of Christina Chapman, a Minnesota woman who is drawn into the world of laptop farming. She is struggling to make ends meet, living in a trailer without running water, and a job offer to be the US representative for an international company is a godsend. Laptop farms gained popularity in 2020 with the rise in remote work, allowing North Korean workers to evade sanctions, infiltrate American companies, and funnel money directly into North Korea's weapons programs. They hire people, like Christina, to run dozens of computers from their homes using software that allows remote access. The hiring companies, many of which are high-profile, are unknowingly giving North Korea money and access to sensitive data.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This week on The Perfect Scam.
0:04.1	There's an army of North Koreans, like thousands of North Koreans, scattered around the world,
0:09.3	who are signing up for remote work jobs at all kinds of companies.
0:15.2	And that is at this point bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars to the regime, according to the feds.
0:23.7	According to the feds, a significant amount of national income.
0:26.7	It is, yeah.
0:27.7	And they like to remind us that's being used to fund their weapons program, which is pretty scary.
0:34.3	It's one of those things.
0:35.2	I think everybody who hears about it is incredulous.
0:37.8	What? What is happening?
0:45.7	Welcome back to the perfect scam. I'm your host, Bob Sullivan. Imagine a dark room full of bookshelves.
0:53.7	Each shelf jam-packed with laptop computers, dozens of them,
0:58.5	humming away, lights flickering, each one with a post-it note attached, with a single name on it.
1:05.7	Now, imagine a pink purse just hanging off the side of one of those shelves.
1:11.3	What does that purse?
1:13.1	And what are those laptops have to do with funding North Korea's weapons program?
1:19.3	Well, that purse belonged to a woman named Christina Chapman.
1:23.5	And those laptops?
1:25.1	Well, this is a rags to riches to rags story you might not believe.
1:31.5	That's why we have the Wall Street Journal's amazing cybersecurity reporter, Bob McMillan,
1:36.5	here to help us tell it.
1:39.4	Yeah, Christina Chapman had worked a variety of jobs.
	...

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