Man gets five years for aiding North Korean IT employment scam

Ukrainian national Oleksandr Didenko, 29, was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 5 years in prison for an identity theft scheme that enabled North Korean workers to secure fraudulent employment.

He pleaded guilty in November 2025 to wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft and agreed to forfeit more than $1.4 million, including about $181,438 in cash and cryptocurrency seized from him and his co-conspirators.

“Oleksandr Didenko’s fraudulent activity inflicted systemic and deliberate financial harm on U.S. companies and American citizens to benefit not only himself, but a hostile nation state,” said Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division.

According to court documents, Didenko ran a website using the U.S.-based domain Upworksell.com to help overseas IT workers buy or rent stolen identities. Beginning in 2021, those workers used the identities to secure jobs on freelance platforms based in California and Pennsylvania, where users could create accounts, advertise their skills and bid on IT contracts.

Through his company, Didenko managed up to 871 proxy identities and operated at least three U.S.-based laptop farms. He helped overseas clients route their earnings through money service transmitters, transferring employment income to foreign bank accounts.

The IT workers clients were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for their work, and much of that income was reported in the names of U.S. citizens whose identities had been stolen, officials said.

On May 16, 2024, the Justice Department seized the domain Upworksell.com and redirected its traffic to the FBI. Polish authorities later arrested Didenko and extradited him to the United States at the end of 2024.