Ep. 3: The Americans

Summary

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To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy

Episode 3: The Americans

June 23, 2026

Host: Nicole Perlroth

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Overview

This episode dives deep into the largely untold stories of Americans—often vulnerable, isolated, or simply looking for a way to make ends meet—who have become witting or unwitting facilitators in North Korea’s global cybercrime operations. Host Nicole Perlroth investigates how everyday people like "Lexi," a young woman from Ohio, become nodes in international "laptop farms" used to circumvent U.S. sanctions and funnel money to North Korea’s weapons program. The episode traces both the recruitment methods used by North Korean actors and the socioeconomic vulnerabilities that make American participation possible, drawing parallels to wider trends in unemployment, income inequality, and online recruitment.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Discovery of “Laptop Farms” in America

• Nicole describes the search for Americans hosting laptops for North Korean IT operations, focusing on “Lexi,” a 21-year-old in Cincinnati.
  • [00:27] “It was actually the North Koreans who led us to Lexi...the FBI calls a laptop farm.”
• The concept: Americans are paid to host company-supplied laptops in their homes, which the North Koreans use, posing as U.S.-based workers.

2. Who Are the Facilitators?

• Socioeconomic circumstances and motivations are a recurring theme:
  • [09:57] Lexi: “We're on disability, so we're living paycheck to paycheck. I can't find a job...I want to help out the best I can...I like to buy [my sister] gifts.”
• Recruitment tactics:
  • Facilitators are approached on Reddit gig forums, sometimes on gaming or adult sites, targeting those searching for “quick cash.”
  • [10:15] Lexi: “I think it was Reddit.”
  • [10:18] Nicole: “North Koreans are finding their facilitators on Reddit, especially subreddits of people looking for gig work or quick cash...also recruiting them off gamer platforms, even the occasional porn site.”
• Psychological manipulation and social engineering are evident:
  • Recruiters build rapport, presenting themselves as friendly, relatable peers, sometimes feigning romantic or close connections.
  • [25:37] Lexi: “He would just, like, ask about my day and, like, you know, all that stuff, like, ask me questions. Like, he seemed, like, really interested in what I had to say.”

3. The Mechanics of the Laptop Scheme

• Laptops are sent to participants, who are asked to simply plug them in, connect to Wi-Fi, and install remote desktop software.
  • [13:03] Lexi: “Like, two at first, and then they want it more and more and more.”
  • [13:11] Lexi: “It's like this application that, like, lets them control it from their laptop.”
• Payments: Typically small, $100 per month per laptop, often via crypto or PayPal.
• Escalation: Facilitators are sometimes asked to involve others, lease out LinkedIn accounts, cash checks, or pick up corporate badges.

4. Case Study: Lexi’s Story

• Lexi’s vulnerability and isolation are highlighted repeatedly.
  • [22:14] Lexi: “I'm really trying to get a job. It's hard because I have really, really bad social anxiety...I’m looking for some jobs to get some money to help my family…we struggle badly…”
• Host Nicole treats Lexi as something between perpetrator and victim—showing both her agency and her exploitation.
  • [23:32] Nicole: “As Lexi talks, it's easy to forget that hosting a laptop isn't some harmless side hustle...But we also made the decision to bleep Lexi's last name, because...she appears to be a victim, too, drawn into an identity scam she never fully understood.”
• Lexi’s evolving awareness: After the initial confrontation, she researches North Korean IT scams online and files an FBI report, frightened by what she discovers.
  • [35:43] Lexi: “I filled out an FBI report. Cause I'm a victim of this, and I don't want...this money issue just to...ruin my life.”

5. Americans as Enablers—and Victims

• Many facilitators are unaware of their role in aiding illicit North Korean operations or the ultimate consequences.
  • [42:54] Researcher “Black Big Swan (BBS)”: “I say it’s 50/50...half of the people just is basically in need of money...if they would knew that this is North Korea...they wouldn’t do it, but they just simply don’t know. And there is the other half which is trying to make a business out of it.”

6. Christina Chapman: The Most Public Case

• Chapman hosted more than 90 laptops, documented her activities on TikTok, and was ultimately sentenced to eight and a half years in prison.

  • [16:08] Nicole: “Christina Chapman of Arizona was sentenced to 102 months of imprisonment for conspiring with North Koreans to infiltrate US companies..."
  • [34:52] Nicole: “Compared to Christina Chapman, the North Koreans probably saw Lexi as an under performer.”

• Chapman's attorney, Alexis Gardner, describes her as unsophisticated, lonely, and preyed upon due to economic need and online isolation:

  • [44:59] Alexis Gardner: “My first thought was honestly, she’s screwed. I mean, she’s an unsophisticated woman...really kind of a lonely person who I could see easily being taken advantage of...”

7. Systemic Vulnerabilities in America

• Perlroth links this cyber phenomenon to deeper economic and social strains:
  • [39:15] “...the long list of things we’ve yet to address here at home. Income inequality, unaffordable health care, unemployment. This loneliness and isolation many Americans are feeling… they all converged here in this one smoke filled house covered in American flags in Cincinnati, where a young American can’t find work, lives off her grandfather’s disability checks and is willing to look the other way for an extra hundred bucks a month.”
• With AI automating jobs and more people turning to online gig work, these operations are likely to grow.

8. Globalization of the Scheme

• The pattern extends beyond the U.S.: Facilitators are also being recruited in Argentina, Ukraine, and across Europe.
  • [41:12] BBS: “There is also like extremely a lot Americans, but we get like a lot of Ukrainian facilitators.”
  • [41:14] Nicole: “Argentina is another growing hub.”

9. The Human Cost and Final Reflection

• Nicole repeatedly underscores the blurred moral lines and the thin separation between normalcy and criminal complicity.
• Episode ends with the recognition that North Korea’s cyber strategies have outpaced American awareness and policy, and that domestic vulnerabilities have unwittingly facilitated foreign adversaries' aims.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On targeting Americans:
  • [02:31] Ryan Lasalle: “There are thousands of people who are trying to rob US Companies of payroll. And the second thing is there are hundreds of Americans who are happy to help them. They call them natives, my native. Like, going back to their colonialism...Who are these people? And what brings them to the point where they’re happy to host multiple companies, property in their house, and defraud those companies and our country and circumvent sanctions?”
• On economic desperation:
  • [09:57] Lexi: “We’re on disability, so we’re living paycheck to paycheck. I can’t find a job, so are for me, and I want to help out the best I can. And I have a little sister. I like to buy her gifts.”
• On the psychology of recruitment:
  • [25:37] Lexi: “He would just, like, ask about my day and, like, you know, all that stuff… Like, he seemed...really interested in what I had to say.”
• Recognition of systemic issues:
  • [39:15] Nicole: “…the long list of things we’ve yet to address here at home. Income inequality, unaffordable health care, unemployment…all converged here in this one smoke filled house covered in American flags in Cincinnati.”
• On facilitators’ self-awareness:
  • [37:15] Cliff: “I looked at the guy’s resume. And darn if he didn’t have laptop farm on his resume, he was touting that that’s what he does… he had no idea he was doing something wrong.”
• On denial and justification:
  • [43:25] BBS: “...it’s like just like trying to downplay the whole thing...I don’t think that we had a single case when we convinced one of those facilitators that what he’s doing is wrong. Like at best what they will do is they will get scared and try to delete it, but that’s like the best case scenario.”
• On the scale and cleverness of the operation:
  • [52:34] Unknown Cybersecurity Expert: “…for years we war gamed in this space. What will it look like if a rogue nuclear armed nation decides to attack the United States through cyber means? ...And we all got it wrong.”

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• [00:27–02:31] — Introduction to Lexi and the concept of “laptop farms”
• [09:36–11:29] — Lexi explains her motivations and recruitment via Reddit
• [15:20–17:46] — Christina Chapman’s legal case and method of operation
• [19:01–22:14] — Perlroth’s second interview with Lexi; her personal struggles and vulnerabilities
• [23:32–26:10] — The grooming/rapport-building phase with the recruiter
• [34:52–36:12] — Chapman's story versus Lexi’s, and Lexi’s attempt to extricate herself
• [39:15–41:42] — Nicole connects individual stories to systemic American issues and the globalization of the scheme
• [44:59–48:38] — In-depth on Christina Chapman’s motivations and experience, via her attorney
• [52:34–53:15] — Broader implications and foreshadowing for next episode

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Additional Insights

• Role of Social Media & Digital Life: Both Lexi and Chapman’s involvement is amplified by their online activity and digital isolation.
• Law Enforcement & Legal Perspective: Authorities are often dealing with people who did not fully understand the scope or impact of their actions.
• Victim-Perpetrator Ambiguity: Many facilitators occupy an ambiguous zone—both exploited and exploiting—with the legal consequences often landing hardest on the least sophisticated.
• Contrast of Patriotism & Exploitation: Lexi’s story unfolds in a house brimming with Americana, underlining the tragic irony of Americans inadvertently bankrolling a foreign adversary.

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Episode Tone

The episode maintains Nicole Perlroth’s signature investigative yet empathetic approach, blending first-person narrative, character-driven storytelling, interview excerpts, and broader sociopolitical analysis. The tone is urgent but nuanced, seeking to humanize the minor players within a vast and dangerous intelligence war, while never losing sight of the real-world damage these operations facilitate.

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Next Episode Teaser:
[53:15] Nicole hints at the next chapter, focusing on how Hollywood’s caricature of North Korea became the unlikely trigger for America’s first major wakeup call to cyber warfare.

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Transcript

[Nicole Prolorath]

I've knocked on a lot of doors in my career. Some belong to hackers, some to whistleblowers, some to spies, many to victims. People who didn't even know they'd been pulled into the story until I showed up. But for all I know, the person behind this next door could be any of the above. My producer and I are driving to the home of a young woman we believe is hosting laptops for North Koreans. Does she know who she's working for? I have no idea. That's what we're here to find out. Okay, so we are driving through Cincinnati on our way to the home of Lexi, who's hosting laptops for these fake North Korean IT workers. And it's freezing cold. There's snow on the ground.

[Ken]

Ground.

[Nicole Prolorath]

And it appears that she lives at her grandfather's house. We're hoping that they'll answer the door and talk to us, but you have low expectations here. Oh, and his car's here, so. All right, we're going to go try our best here, hope for the best.

[Lexi]

What a wild scenario we're in.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Hello, Nicole. I'm Nicole Prolorath, and this is To Catch a Thief. It was actually the North Koreans who led us to Lexi. She was one of a handful of Americans who surfaced in their backchannel communications on Discord. Remember, NESOS deliberately hired a North Korean operative as an AI developer. They shipped him a laptop, placed it with spyware, flipped on the camera, and found themselves sitting in the back a closet surrounded by other laptops. It's what the FBI calls a laptop farm. And those who track this for a living estimate that there could be anywhere from 75 to 200 laptop farms operating across the country, run by Americans who knowingly or unknowingly are hosting laptops for North Korea. And yet we know almost nothing about them. Here's Nisos. Ryan, Lasalle.

[Ryan Lasalle]

I think if we go back to, like, what's the big thing that people need to take away here? The first takeaway is there are thousands of people who are trying to rob US Companies of payroll. And the second thing is there are hundreds of Americans who are happy to help them. They call them natives, my native. Like, going back to their colonialism. That's how they refer to the Americans who have the laptop farms. Who are these people? And what brings them to the point where they're happy to host multiple companies, property in their house, and defraud those companies and our country and circumvent sanctions?

[Nicole Prolorath]

The only way to answer these questions was to meet one of these Americans. Face to face. But finding someone who wasn't going to pull a gun out on me presented something of a challenge.

[Ryan Lasalle]

Yeah, we've got. So we've got one in Texas, one in Florida, one in Nebraska, one in Ohio. So Nebraska is the closest to you, but I don't know that any of those are a place I would go without some sort of protection.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Yeah. And what do we know about this facilitator?

[Ben]

Not much, actually. That's one of the individuals who was arrested. I know that for sure.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Oh.

[Ben]

For breaking and entering and theft.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Okay.

[Chris Wong]

Definitely.

[Ryan Lasalle]

The guy in Florida has also been arrested for theft. The person in Cincinnati is a woman.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Oh.

[Ryan Lasalle]

So you might have a lower chance of. Maybe by just our own internal bias. You may have a lower chance of getting shot by a woman.

[Nicole Prolorath]

This was the process of elimination that brought us to Lexi's doorstep. The North Koreans repeatedly mentioned Lexi in their chats. They called her their Ohio native and confirmed they'd paid her to host at least a couple laptops. And then, incredibly, they dropped her name and address, which is where we're headed now for someone at. At the center of a transnational cyber fraud operation. Lexi barely exists online. From what we can gather, she lives in a duplex with her grandfather, Ken. So we haven't been able to find a ton about her on social media. She has a LinkedIn profile with no picture on. Looks like she did have a Facebook profile. And she's young. She's 21. So I'll be curious to know how they found not someone who seems that online. It's worth noting this is happening at a particularly tense moment in America. We're only a week out from ICE agents killing Alex Preddy, an American ICU nurse in Minneapolis. I will say that this door. Knock and talk. Couldn't be happening at a worse time societally. Yeah, people are really down to let strangers into their house right now. People are on edge, which makes what we're about to do fraught. Hence the security detail. Are you armed, Dennis?

[Chris Wong]

It's my SWAT gun.

[Lexi]

It's OX17.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Okay, we're pulling down the street, and it's pretty much like you would picture any street in the Sincerity Cincinnati. We're looking at row after row of squat brick houses, some more rundown than others. We find the right house number and make our way through ankle deep snow up the steps to the door, where, ironically, given the circumstances, we're met with a God bless America sign. So here we go. It does look like someone's home.

[Lexi]

I see a walker.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Just notice the doormat. Go away. All right. Finally someone answers. Hi. Sorry to interrupt. This is Rebecca. I'm Nicole. We are doing some research on laptop farms. I'm sorry, it's a bad time. Okay. Are we in the right spot?

[Lexi]

Are we looking for the.

[Ken]

They're upstairs. Just yell.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Oh, okay. We knock and knock, but no one answers. It's freezing cold. So we return to the car and try the phone numbers we've tracked down for Lexi and her family.

[Lexi]

Your call has been forwarded to voicemail. At the tone, please record your message.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Hi, Ken. This is Nicole Prolorath. We stopped by her house today. We are hoping to talk to Lexi or Alexis. Eventually I decide to leave an old fashioned note and just as I'm taping it to the door, the neighbor from before pops his head out. Oh, hi.

[Ken]

Let me call up there and tell him you're out here.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Oh, you can call it.

[Ken]

I talked to Kenny.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Oh, good.

[Ken]

And he's gonna come down.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Thank you.

[Ken]

Hey, Kenny. I'm standing here with her now. Would you like to walk in the hall until you come down? The lady.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Hi, Ken. I'm so sorry to bother you. We were looking for Alexis. We have some information about some laptops that she was sent and some questions about the sender. Ken agrees to come down. Shuffling behind him is our North Korean facilitator, Lexi. Or as her grandfather calls her, Alexis. Yeah.

[Ken]

Hi, Alexis.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Hi, Alexis. I'm Nicole. This is Rebecca. Trying to get by.

[Ken]

I got a prosthetic leg.

[Nicole Prolorath]

I'm so sorry to make you come down. I know. Anyway, so, hi. We tried to reach you.

[Ken]

Whatever you got to say, whatever. I want to know what's going on.

[Lexi]

Yeah, sure.

[Nicole Prolorath]

So we try to ring the doorbell. Sorry, it's non fun family. Sometimes I'm sorry to like barge into your house. I don't want to make you uncomfortable. Do you want to just sit down here or.

[Ken]

What's going.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Describing what exactly we're doing here is a bit of a mouthful. I'm a cybersecurity journalist and we had been researching these laptop farms and laptops that are getting sent to Americans homes. They're coming from North Korea. So we wanted to call and find out if you had any information about where these laptops had come from. We were able to track some of their internal communications, show that they were sending them to you. We're now standing in a stairwell with Lexi and Ken. Maybe it's her hello Kitty shirt, pajama shorts and bare feet. But Lexi looks a lot younger than 21. She's a kid. It could be the fact we've just woken her up from a nap. But I gotta say, she doesn't sound nearly as shocked as you'd expect someone to be, especially when they learn they're part of a global North Korean labor fraud scheme. And so we didn't know if you knew anything about this or.

[Lexi]

I didn't.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Did they identify themselves?

[Lexi]

No, they didn't.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Who did they say they were?

[Lexi]

They said they were working for programming. That's what they said. Okay.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Did you have any idea these people might be shady?

[Lexi]

Just her.

Okay.

[Ken]

It's money.

[Lexi]

Yeah. Okay.

[Ken]

That's what gets her eyes. I don't know that much about my granddaughter.

[Lexi]

Okay, so we're on disability, so we're living paycheck to paycheck. I can't find a job, so are for me, and I want to help out the best I can. And I have a little sister. I like to buy her gifts.

[Nicole Prolorath]

So how old your little sister?

[Lexi]

She's. I think she's around like 16 or 17. She's 17.

[Nicole Prolorath]

How did they find you originally on LinkedIn?

[Lexi]

I think it was Reddit.

[Nicole Prolorath]

From what we've gathered so far, North Koreans are finding their facilitators on Reddit, especially subreddits of people looking for gig work or quick cash. But according to nesos, they're also recruiting them off gamer platforms, even the occasional porn site.

[Ryan Lasalle]

We did see one mention that they were using Chatterbait as one of the channels to find people. I'm not sure how you approach someone who might want to be in it there, but maybe there's a big crossover in that demographic. I don't know.

[Nicole Prolorath]

These North Koreans do have an ideal candidate. Based on what Nisos gleaned from their discord chatter. They look for young American men, college graduates, and young professionals looking for a side hustle, a way to pay off their student debt, or just a foothold into a career in tech. But plenty of the Americans North Korea is recruiting for this work are just people who, for whatever reason, can't get work. Maybe because they have a criminal background or they just don't have the right skills or experience. What all these facilitators have in common is that they're desperate for cash. Here's Nisos, Ben.

[Ben]

So these individuals were on Reddit saying that they need money, that they're really poor, and they've been trying to get people to loan them money. So the operator got in contact with the person and said, you know, I might have an idea for you of a job but we need to take this conversation off Reddit into discord to have a further conversation on what we can do together and how it works. So in our Network, there was four individuals all across the U.S. there were facilitators already. We've also seen them have conversations. Would you mind housing laptops? And then people freaking out and saying, this sounds illegal. This is not something I want to do, and I don't need money that bad. We've seen ones that said, nah, that sounds a little fishy, but you know what? I need money really bad, so I'm okay with it.

[Nicole Prolorath]

So far, Lexi's story lines up beat for beat. She was young, introverted, online, in desperate need of cash, and from what we can tell, not someone who's going to ask too many questions. Where did they claim to be from?

[Lexi]

I think they said overseas.

[Nicole Prolorath]

At any point, did you figure out who are these people or.

[Lexi]

No, it was just I was looking online for help to get money, and that's how they got me.

[Nicole Prolorath]

So they reached out to you and then what was the ask?

[Lexi]

They sent an. It was like, I need help with programming, and I want to send a laptop to your house, and I just want to pay for your WI fi. Basically, that's what they said.

[Nicole Prolorath]

How many laptops have they asked you to host?

[Lexi]

Like, two at first, and then they want it more and more and more.

[Nicole Prolorath]

How many do you have to, like, set it up for them or you

[Lexi]

have to, like, put on a. It's like this application that, like, lets them control it from their laptop.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Oh, okay. Like a remote desktop.

[Lexi]

Yeah, but you have to download that. Yeah.

[Ken]

Are they. Are they inside your laptop?

[Lexi]

No, no, not mine.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Just these laptops. It's like a corporation will send you a laptop, and you'll just plug it in for them. And do they ask you to connect it to a VPN or. They do everything on the back end.

[Lexi]

They do everything on the back end, I think. Did they speak English? Well, they spoke it pretty well, yeah.

[Nicole Prolorath]

We're only getting bits and pieces, but Ken's interjections start to paint a clearer picture.

[Ken]

She's a writer. She writes.

[Nicole Prolorath]

What do you write?

[Lexi]

Just fantasy stories.

[Ken]

I raise them. I've been raising them. Yeah, I had her. She. Believe it or not, she could. When she's at the hospital and she's born, I could put her in both my hands. That's how long I've had her. You know, if you want her help, she'll help you. I love my granddaughter. Like I said, she could probably show you Everything she's got. I mean, she. She'll do it.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Yeah. Are they.

[Ken]

If it's for our country, she'll do

[Nicole Prolorath]

it on the phone. Or is it on WhatsApp? It's a bit hard to catch Ken there, but he said, if it's for our country, she'll do it. At this point, the absurdity of our situation starts to set in. We're standing in a stairwell explaining a North Korean employment fraud scam to a 21 year old girl in a hello Kitty T shirt while her stunned and clearly patriotic grandfather tries to take it all in. My producer and I exchange glances. We decide to give them some time to digest all of this and call it for the night. And then ask if it'd be okay if we come back for a proper sit down tomorrow. They agree. But that night, we agonized over whether there'd even be a second interview. There was a good chance Lexi would Google North Korean laptops, read the headlines, and disappear before we ever spoke again. Because there was one name she was almost certain to find. Christina Chapman.

[Alexis Gardner]

A Valley woman is accused of helping the North Korean government avoid sanctions and bringing millions for the country's weapons program.

[Nicole Prolorath]

According to the Department of Justice, Christina

[Lexi]

Chapman operated a laptop farm from her

[Chris Wong]

home between October 2020 and 2023. Chapman is said to have helped North Korean IT workers secure stolen identities of US citizens and residents, using those to get them remote jobs with US Companies.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Whatever ignorance or confusion Christina Chapman claimed, it didn't spare her from what happened next.

[Alexis Gardner]

The indictment was unsealed this week, alleging that 49 year old Christina Chapman helped

[Nicole Prolorath]

North Korea Korea plant people at prominent companies across the country.

[Cliff]

Chapman is charged with nine counts, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government.

[Nicole Prolorath]

A. Christina Chapman of Arizona was sentenced to 102 months of imprisonment for conspiring with North Koreans to infiltrate US companies, including Fortune 500 companies with the goal of creating revenue to send to North Korea for their munitions development.

[Chris Wong]

A federal judge has sentenced Christina Chapman to eight and a half years in prison for her role in a fraudulent scheme that assisted North Korea and generated income for their nuclear weapons program.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Last year, Christina Chapman pled guilty to conspiracy, identity theft and money laundering. And while she's the most public case, she's hardly an anomaly. Without these American facilitators, North Korea's IT worker scheme doesn't work because they're not here. They need Americans to host their corporate laptops and more. In the beginning, North Koreans would spin up their own LinkedIn accounts. But once companies grew wise to Their ways, the North Koreans switched tack. They started compromising real Americans LinkedIn accounts and even pulling their Social Security numbers off the dark web and using their identities to apply for jobs. But these days, they're approaching Americans to loan out their LinkedIn accounts, even asking them to cash their paychecks, set up bank accounts. In some cases, they've asked them to show up for in person job interviews, even take drug tests, all in exchange for a small fee.

[Chris Wong]

My name is Chris Wong. I was with the FBI for 10 years, most of that time working against North Korea.

[Lexi]

Okay.

[Nicole Prolorath]

I want to start with American's role in all of this. Talk to me about the range of people that are getting caught up in this.

[Chris Wong]

By and large, when people are working remotely these days, you're going to have a company laptop, and the company might have certain controls in place so that they can make sure that you are where you say you are. They're not going to ship the laptop to China or to North Korea or to Russia. If you've told them you're in Georgia, that's just not going to happen.

[Ken]

Right.

[Chris Wong]

And then there's going to be payment processes that the North Korean needs to set up. And all of this needs to look at least to the company that's hiring them as somewhat legitimate. Like, oh, you have a bank account at this small community bank. You have asked for your laptop to be shipped to this certain location. And all of that fits within their HR profile. But the North Korean's not there, so he has to find ways to make this happen, which is where you start running into like a 21 year old who's looking to earn an extra $200 a month or an extra $50 a month because maybe I'm in college, this is an easy job because all I do is leave that thing there and it's like passive income. And by the way, a 21 year old's probably not expecting to be contacted by North Korean IT workers to do that.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Which brings us Back to our 21 year old facilitator, Le. After a sleepless night in Cincinnati, we wake up and grab coffee. Snow has blanketed everything overnight. We meet up with our security detail and head out for our scheduled sit down with Lexi and Ken. But we're pretty convinced there's no way they're gonna let us back in. To our surprise, Lexi opens the door and waves us inside. We follow her up the stairs and pass through her living room where her grandmother's watching tv, smoking cigarettes on the couch. I'm a little taken aback when they tell me she's very ill, they guide us toward the dining room. And as we sit down at a worn wooden dining table, I realize we're surrounded by Americana, American flags, bald eagles. There's patriotic knickknacks everywhere. Ken takes a minute to get settled in his chair. And can I ask how you lost your leg?

[Ken]

They said I had a rare disease called charcot. And I don't know if it's the bone. It dissolves your bones in your foot. That's how it started. I had four broken bones in my foot and didn't even know it, so. And they just collapsed.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Do you have any idea how you broke them?

[Ken]

No. No. I was weed eating the front yard and I just collapsed on the ground. And that's the only thing I can remember. It all started from there. I lost my kidneys is another story. That's from the antibiotics, I believe they gave me for my leg. That destroyed my kidneys, so. And they were giving me some strong antibodies, too, due to IV and everything. I don't even want to talk. That was a nightmare in the hospital with them.

[Nicole Prolorath]

I ask about the American flags and eagle figurines. Ken tells us he collects them. He's a proud American. He tells us everything he knows about North Korea came from his father.

[Ken]

He passed away, but he told me a lot about Korea because he was in Korea.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Was he in the Korean War?

[Ken]

Yeah. He was a Marine? Yeah.

[Nicole Prolorath]

In any other room, in any other context, this might have been an ordinary family detail. But given why we're all here, it lands differently. The Lexi from the stairwell last night was guarded, nervous, almost monosyllabic. But sitting across from me now, she sounds different. Like she spent the night thinking about what she would say, maybe even rehearsing it. She immediately dives into her explanation. Not as some willing accomplice in North Korea, but as a broke, isolated kid who got pulled into something she didn't fully understand.

[Lexi]

I'm really trying to get a job. It's hard because I have really, really bad social anxiety. And I. I freeze up when I try to talk to people. That's my problem. It was just. I'm looking for some jobs to get some money to help around my family. Because like I said last night, we struggle badly, especially near the end of the month.

[Nicole Prolorath]

It could be rationalization or self preservation. Or maybe she is exactly the type of person these operations are designed to prey upon.

[Lexi]

It's really hard for us, especially with my grandpa. He lost his leg, his kidneys, and he's the only One that drives. And my grandma lost her hearing, and it's just me and my little sister, you know, And I have a lot of problems in the head because my mom, she left me when I was really young, and it messed me up. But I was trying to get some money because I can draw, I can write, and I want to use that talent, and they messages me off of that. It really sucks. I just took advantage of.

[Nicole Prolorath]

As Lexi talks, it's easy to forget that hosting a laptop isn't some harmless side hustle. And it's not just a crime. It's helping fund a foreign adversary's nuclear program. But we also made the decision to bleep Lexi's last name, because despite some very questionable choices here, she appears to be a victim, too, drawn into an identity scam she never fully understood. I asked Lexi to tell us how the North Koreans got to her in the first place, so maybe it makes sense to back up. I always just start with Reddit.

[Lexi]

Yeah, Reddit.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Do you spend a lot of time on Reddit?

[Lexi]

Not really. It's not really my place. I just really went there to try and get some, like, little work to do, and that's where they approached me.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Is there, like, a name of the Reddit channel?

[Lexi]

I think one of them was like, get money now.

[Chris Wong]

Okay.

[Lexi]

Yeah, like that.

Or pocket money online. Like that.

[Nicole Prolorath]

But your post was.

[Lexi]

Yeah, but they.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Drawing card or.

[Lexi]

Or just anything, really. So that. I guess that's why they said, because the anything part.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Lexi had posted that she would do anything online for quick cash. And she mentioned she draws. She gets out her phone and pulls up one of the drawings she sold on Reddit for 20 bucks. It's a really sweet anime character.

[Lexi]

Yeah, her. She's like. She's one of my first. Hold on.

[Nicole Prolorath]

She tells us she dreams of publishing a book about her anime creations.

[Ken]

When she was in school, they used to tell me how she. They used to call her nickname her the writer, because she was always writing. So

[Lexi]

I was a. In trouble for it in school. Just imagine getting in trouble for writing.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Her Reddit posts attract a guy Lexi calls the recruiter. He asks if they can take their chat to Discord. And for a while, they chat about everything but laptops. It's clear he was trying to build a rapport.

[Lexi]

We were just. He would just, like, ask about my day and, like, you know, all that stuff, like, ask me questions. Like, he seemed, like, really interested in what I had to say. Really?

[Nicole Prolorath]

So almost like an Internet buddy.

[Lexi]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Nicole Prolorath]

And what kind of things would he

[Lexi]

ask you about, like, I have screenshots right here. When I was talking about my dream as being a writer when I was a child, he said then that would be a long dream for you. I wanted to be a designer when I was a child. I'm doing programming now, but I love it.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Did you share anything else about himself in those early conversations?

[Lexi]

Not. I think he shared his birthday with me.

[Nicole Prolorath]

How old was the year?

[Alexis Gardner]

He.

[Lexi]

I think he said he was like, around my age.

[Nicole Prolorath]

This recruiter claimed to be Japanese. He sent her emojis, a lot of emojis. She called him darling. She confided about her family and their money troubles and. And once he'd earned her trust, he made the ask. Lexi was too shy to read their exchanges aloud. So you'll hear me reading them here. It says. All right. So now you understood what I want, right? Yes, darling. Excellent. So, in short, I would like you to rent me your Internet connection and home address to start our collaboration. I will guide you by any to end. What I'm going to be doing from now is I will be contacting you over here within one to two week, even before Christmas. And Will brought a new laptop to your home. Then you set up the laptop and allow me to access it remotely via any desk. If things go well, you will be having a monthly income. It's currently estimated estimated to 100 to 200 per month. As soon as the recruiter broached the laptop, his affect completely shifted and that's all he would talk about. He told her she just need to sign for it, plug it in, download a free remote desktop tool, and in exchange she'd get a hundred bucks in crypto paid to her PayPal account every month. Did you ever get on the phone with these people?

[Lexi]

No, I avoided it.

[Unknown Cybersecurity Expert]

Okay.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Did they ask to get on?

[Lexi]

Yes, they. They asked a lot and I just said I. I can't talk.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Okay. And did they say, we'd like to send you more than one laptop?

[Lexi]

Yes, they said that a lot.

[Nicole Prolorath]

And would they have offered more payment for that?

[Lexi]

Yes, like I said, 100 per laptop.

[Nicole Prolorath]

And why wouldn't you do that?

[Lexi]

I. I just. I don't know. It's. I just felt like something was fishy about it. Really.

[Nicole Prolorath]

How many were they trying to get you to take?

[Lexi]

Uh, I don't know. They sent me two evers and then the first one broke and they wanted to send more.

[Nicole Prolorath]

When they would ask you if they could send you more laptops, how did you phrase your reply?

[Lexi]

Uh, I said. I honestly said I don't mind. That's literally what I said. But they just never sent them. I'm glad they didn't, honestly.

[Nicole Prolorath]

And did you have any concerns over what this was?

[Lexi]

Not really. I mean, I was a little concerned, but, you know, I really wanted the. You know, the money, the family issues and all that stuff.

[Nicole Prolorath]

And so you plug in these laptops, do they give you any instructions, like you have to keep them open?

[Lexi]

Keep it. Yeah, keep it. And keep it on and plugged in.

[Ryan Lasalle]

They

[Lexi]

were able to control it when it was closed, which I didn't understand.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Okay. And since you didn't know these people, were you kind of worried when you were setting it up that maybe there was someone watching you through the camera?

[Lexi]

Yeah.

[Nicole Prolorath]

So did you put tape on the webcam or anything like that?

[Lexi]

Yeah.

Do you remember seeing anything on the home screen when you first turned the computer on? Any kind of name? It said Dustin Lee. That's the name. It said Dustin Lee.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Dustin Lee. Lexi showed us a picture of the login screen with Dustin Lee's name, and we found what we believe is his LinkedIn page. We reached out and never heard back, so we can't be sure, but as far as DPRK IT worker profiles go, it tracks. Despite a long work history, his LinkedIn profile was only set up a couple months ago. He claimed to have had a three year stenitic censure, but Accenture confirmed it has no record of a destiny ever working there. His account linked off to a personal website featuring what's clearly an AI generated headshot, a VoIP number, and a long bio that was pretty clearly written by AI. It's textbook. As Lexi's unspooling this bit by painful bit, I look over at Ken. It's clear he had zero idea what she's been up to. I asked her what she used the money for. She said it helped pay for the WI fi bill, the occasional takeout, and gifts. She says she likes to buy her little sister small gifts.

[Lexi]

She likes to decorate her room. That's her favorite thing. And I love to buy her that stuff. Makes her happy. She likes lights. That's what her favorite thing is. Lights.

[Nicole Prolorath]

After Lexi sets up the laptop, the recruiter sticks around for the next few weeks, then hands her off to a man he calls Jacob. But Lexi has an alternate name for Jacob. She calls him the mastermind. And this guy is a far cry from her sweet Japanese Internet friend. Again, you'll hear me reading his messages here. So he says, okay, then, let me chat. I don't care what you were doing with him. For now, you're my business partner. You have the laptop he sent you, and honestly, I've been using it for two months and I've been in charge of the payment for you. Smiley face. So what your responsibility is keep the current laptop available on the Internet and receive. And keep the laptop available for the Internet. And what was your last correspondence with the original person? Like, where are you?

[Lexi]

Yeah, I just. I said, are you all right?

[Nicole Prolorath]

And nothing back.

[Lexi]

Nothing back.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Her anime loving Japanese friend ghosted her. Everything that came next came from the mastermind, Jacob. And what do we know about Jacob or how did he present?

[Lexi]

He said he was from Texas. That's what he told me.

[Nicole Prolorath]

And you said you got that feeling that this was a little fishy? What point did that start to feel that way?

[Lexi]

I guess a little like after. Cuz like I was like, why would you need to use the Internet when you're in America? Right. And I didn't like the way he talked. He was like, creepy? A little bit, yeah. What kind of creepy? Like, you know, I'm a. Like a young girl and it's just like that kind of stuff, you know? Yeah, it's like the flirty stuff. Yeah.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Do you mind reading us any of those messages?

[Lexi]

I don't know if I have any of the flirty ones. I kind of avoided them.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Okay. I don't know if Lexi deleted these flirty messages or she just doesn't want to read them in front of her grandfather, but. But kind of avoided is a bit of an understatement. Reading through Lexi's WhatsApp history shows Jacob calls her repeatedly. Not only does she never pick up, she tells him she's non verbal. Okay. You said, I just can't use my voice. I assume you were trying to not get on the phone.

[Lexi]

Yeah.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Okay. You said you know what a mute is. You just told him like, I can't talk. Okay. This doesn't stop Jacob from pushing Lexi to do more over text.

[Lexi]

They want me to find people around.

[Nicole Prolorath]

All around the U.S. do you know some people who meet this requirement? Male, 31 to 35, handy with online work and laptop. Good network speed. Work 8 to 5 CST Central Time at home, remotely. No, sadly not.

[Lexi]

Hmm.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Okay. No worries. Have they been more aggressive about sending these around or finding other people or like, how do you even find other people?

[Lexi]

I haven't really. I'm not a social person, so I was the worst person to ask. So I haven't found anyone.

[Nicole Prolorath]

I think it's safe to say the North Koreans didn't exactly pick the most enterprising laptop farmer with Lexie. Christina Chapman was getting paid an average of $4,900 a month to host laptops when the FBI raided her home in 2023. They seized 90 machines. And incredibly, Chapman documented much of this work on TikTok.

[Lexi]

It's been another busy morning for me. When I start at 5:30 in the morning, that's what time I get up. I start at 5:30, go straight to my office, which is the next door away from my bedroom, and start taking care of my clients computer business. Today is going to be a bit of an out and about day because I have a lot of errands to run for clients. I got a bundle of pry earrings and I'm trying to wear a different pair each day. I think so far these are my favorites.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Compared to Christina Chapman, the North Koreans probably saw Lexi as an under performer. She broke the first laptop they sent her and was only making 100 bucks a month to host a single corporate laptop until we knocked on our door last night. So after we left last night, tell us what you did to the laptops.

[Lexi]

I sat right here for a little bit, just contemplating doing research. That's what I did first. And then I also. I filled out an FBI report. Cause I'm a victim of this, and I don't want to be like, you know, because like, I'm so young and I don't. I haven't really lived my life and I don't want this money issue just to like, you. Don't ruin my life.

[Nicole Prolorath]

What were you thinking when we came in here and said we're looking into North Koreans planting laptops?

[Lexi]

Yeah, it was. It was scary.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Had you known about this North Korean issue?

[Lexi]

No, not at all.

[Nicole Prolorath]

The investigative journalist in me doesn't want to give her the benefit of the doubt or believe that people are just willingly hosting laptops for perfect strangers overseas. But her story's not that uncommon. If you recall, Cliff from the last episodes, the CISO from one of the large staffing agencies who asked to remain anonymous, said, we've given him a pseudonym and we're anonymizing his voice. Voice. Well, he told us he was actually able to track down one facilitator in Florida who, get this, was a US Military veteran. Not only did this guy not know he was working on behalf of North Korea, he didn't think there was anything wrong with hosting a laptop farm. He actually openly advertised his laptop services on his resume.

[Cliff]

I looked at the guy's resume. And darn if he didn't have laptop farm on his resume, he was touting that that's what he does. So fast forward when we talked to him, he had no idea he was doing something wrong. He was using the laptop in his own laptop farm, serving up other laptops that he thought were all legitimate, had no idea that he was involved in something so sinister as what he was involved in, and was probably the most upset person that we've encountered.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Then, in a completely separate case, Cliff tried to recover a laptop from one of the North Koreans his staffing agency had placed. He reached out to the candidate's LinkedIn account. It turns out that account actually belonged to an American who was getting paid $1,000 a month to lease out his LinkedIn account to North Korean workers. And I think everyone needs to hear this voicemail he left Cliff.

[Unnamed Facilitator]

Just to be super clear, these folks basically presented me an opportunity to use my LinkedIn and he was basically offering me a negotiation. So percentages of every project income, so every project that he was able to close, giving me like 20% of kickback. And then I think I have something like a thousand dollars in addition has like a base pay every month.

[Nicole Prolorath]

This guy tells Cliff that all this talk of North Korea has him a bit stressed and reconsidering this line of work.

[Unnamed Facilitator]

I've also been opening myself maybe to other kinds of opportunities, like maybe the adult entertainment. Recently I've been discovering adult entertainment and that industry allows you to always just be relaxed and fresh and be high minded. Hope this message finds you in the warmest spirits and I look forward to your response soon.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Okay, here's where I think we need to step back. This season was supposed to be about North Korea, the remote IT workers. But the more I dug in, the more I realized it's about US America. It really hit me in Cincinnati that the long list of of things we've yet to address here at home. Income inequality, unaffordable health care, unemployment. This loneliness and isolation many Americans are feeling, whether it's from social media or just the long tail of COVID they all converged here in this one smoke filled house covered in American flags in Cincinnati, where a young American can't find work, lives off her grandfather's disability checks and is willing to look the other way for an extra hundred bucks a month. But once you start pulling on that thread, once you consider the US rise in long term unemployment, once you think about the jobs AI will likely erase and the people now competing for work against a flood of perfectly AI ridden North Korean resumes. It gets scary because the pool of Americans North Korea is drawing from, it's about to get a whole lot bigger. And this isn't just limited to Americans.

[Black Big Swan (BBS)]

Oh, they are like everywhere here.

[Nicole Prolorath]

I'll bring in our interview with one of the researchers who's been tracking these facilitators around the globe. A Poland based researcher who asked to go by his online alias Black Big Swan or BBS for short. BBS has tracked down these facilitators all over the globe.

[Black Big Swan (BBS)]

There is also like extremely a lot Americans, but we get like a lot of Ukrainian facilitators.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Argentina is another growing hub.

[Black Big Swan (BBS)]

You can make hundred dollars per day or something like this. And for a guy from Argentina who's currently unemployed, maybe starting his developer journey, this sounds pretty good. And because he already has a relation with this North Korean through many different private chats, he's kind of a more trustworthy that this will actually be a legitimate job. People just try to take their chances online, right? And North Koreans are waiting for it.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Have you talked to any of these facilitators one on one?

[Black Big Swan (BBS)]

Yeah, to some of them.

[Nicole Prolorath]

And how many of them were not aware that they were operating at the behest of North Korea?

[Black Big Swan (BBS)]

I say it's 50, 50, like half of the people just is basically in need of money and they will take any job and ignore all of the potential repercussions. But if they would knew that this is North Korea and that this is a scam in the end, like a security threat, they wouldn't do do it, but they just simply don't know. And there is the other half which is trying to make a business out of it. I don't know if they are telling themselves a story that they are running a legitimate business, just like maybe in a gray area of the market or they just don't care. The most interesting is the guys who try to make a business out of it. Because those guys, they will tell themselves a story that they are businessmen, that this is all fine, that they are not doing anything illegal. They may even know that North Korea is doing it. But they will choose to ignore this fact. They will just assume that nothing bad will happen, that it's completely fine. I'm just giving them access to my PC.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Okay, when you have reached out to these facilitators and you have told them you are doing this on behalf of North Korea and this is where the money goes. If the conversation has gotten that far, what are the typical responses you've gotten?

[Black Big Swan (BBS)]

Usually denial, like a Full denial, sometimes threatening, asking, how do we know this? How did we obtain this illegal data? To quote one of those guys,

[Ryan Lasalle]

often,

[Black Big Swan (BBS)]

often it's like just like trying to downplay the whole thing. Like those people, maybe in the next few weeks they will try to delete this whole business because they will get afraid of like, you know, criminal charges or something. But usually their first reaction is to basically ignore this. Like to say that there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just doing business. It's a tech business. I'm a businessman, I pay my taxes. I don't think that we had a single case when we convinced one of those facilitators that what he's doing is wrong. Like at best what they will do is they will get scared and try to delete it. But that's like the best case scenario.

[Nicole Prolorath]

And on this spectrum of total ignorance to witting accomplice, where do you think Christina Chapman landed?

[Black Big Swan (BBS)]

I think like the case of Chapman was actually that she wasn't trying to make a business out of it. She was obviously motivated by economical gain. She needed money, but she wouldn't fall into the type of this businessman we are often seeing where they just like basically don't give a hell about what they are doing as long as they are getting paid. And they will continue to do it even if we tell them that this is North Korea.

[Nicole Prolorath]

We reached out to Christina Chapman several times, but weren't able to secure an interview with her in prison. But we did speak to the person closest to her case, her attorney.

[Alexis Gardner]

Hi, I'm Alexis Gardner, I'm a federal public defender in the Federal Defender's office for the District of Columbia. When I first received the case, it was a high profile case. And my first thought was honestly, she screwed. I mean, she's an unsophisticated woman without really any skills or talent to, to think of and really kind of a lonely person who I could see easily being taken advantage of. Someone who doesn't have a lot of the resources, who's hard up for money, who wants attention. She had a pretty big online following, which I honestly surprised me.

[Nicole Prolorath]

But like a lot of influencers, Christina was trying to paint a very specific picture of her life.

[Lexi]

I am sitting in an RV and I am in Long Beach, California. I'm so excited. I am very early to the location of the rising Japan music festival.

[Alexis Gardner]

She would be talking about her like K pop interests and her different like diet plans and stuff like that, and then talking about kind of her woes of life. And then she did this boot camp.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Christina found an IT boot camp online, a six week course to help her find a job in the field. This is how Chapman herself described what happened next in an interview with Bloomberg.

[Lexi]

Towards the end of the course, I had gotten several different job offers. And then we went into Covid. Most of the job offers went away with the exception of one. The job offer came to me through LinkedIn and basically said that they wanted me to be the face for their company. I would be the person in between them and the clients. It was about building websites, maybe doing database work.

[Alexis Gardner]

They've reached out to her on LinkedIn, like, hi, we see you're looking for a job. We have the perfect job for you. You could be the US base of our company. And yeah, that's how their relationship started.

[Nicole Prolorath]

By the time the red flag started showing up, Chapman was already in too deep.

[Alexis Gardner]

I felt sorry for her and that I realized, you know, she had gotten into more trouble than she, I think, conceptualized. She did think initially everything was above board until she started being asked to do things that weren't in like the role that she thought she had taken on, like cash people's checks.

[Lexi]

I did that with the understanding that the people on the checks were somehow involved with the company. These were people that I trusted, dumbly trusted, but I still trusted them.

[Alexis Gardner]

You know, we're gonna send the checks to you for you to cash. And it's like, oh, well, hold on, that's not what we talked about. Well, don't worry, we'll make it worth your while. We'll give you this much money for, you know, this percentage of each one.

[Nicole Prolorath]

And when she was in, she was in. She wasn't just cashing North Koreans checks, she was picking up their corporate badges.

[Alexis Gardner]

You keep getting more into it. It's like, oh, well, this badge requires someone go pick it up in person. So Denny needs to pick it up. And it's like, well, there is no Denny, so you need to go pick it up. And she's like, oh, there is no Denny. Well, so is that just a made up person entirely or this? And it's like, you know, go pick it up. I mean, sometimes they answer her questions frankly, like, oh, yeah, no, that's just made up. She made less than $160,000 off the whole thing. It's in my sensing memo.

[Black Big Swan (BBS)]

Of course.

[Alexis Gardner]

They were like $17.5 million. And I was like, this woman didn't even make 60 grand a year off this.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Back in Ohio, I specifically asked Lexi if she'd read up on Christina Chapman. Before last night, before we came knocking on your door, did you have questions about the legality of all of this?

[Lexi]

Yeah.

[Nicole Prolorath]

How did that come up?

[Lexi]

I don't know. It's just. I was asleep when you guys came, so I just woke up, and my mind was just all over the place, like, what is this about?

[Nicole Prolorath]

So had you read up on any of this in the news? Did you know any of this?

[Lexi]

I looked last night. I did.

[Nicole Prolorath]

What kind of cases came up in your research?

[Lexi]

It was really just. It was on Reddit, because that's where a lot of information is, because it was someone asking questions about it, and everyone in the comments was like, you're gonna go to jail. You're gonna go to prison. It was scary. It made my anxiety spike, like, how people, like, in my position were arrested and stuff. And that's why I filled out the FBI report, because I wanted to show that I was a victim.

[Nicole Prolorath]

And did you read the case of Christina Chapman, by any chance? She was in Arizona, and she was hosting laptops for a ton of people.

[Lexi]

She had around 60, I think.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Yeah. And so she was arrested, and that was the first time we saw this. At this point, ken jumps in.

[Ken]

60.

[Nicole Prolorath]

60 laptops? Yeah.

[Ken]

Oh, she's making bank. Was.

[Nicole Prolorath]

But it doesn't end well.

[Lexi]

Did y' all work on the FBI report together? I did it on my own. I felt I didn't want to cause him, like, any more stress, you know? And when you were looking on the Reddit threads last night, did you write anything to anybody? No. Like I said, I don't like to communicate. When's the last time you talked to Jacob? Uh, he actually messaged me today because I like, last night, I turned off all the laptops, so he's probably, like, wondering what's going on.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Oh, do you mind reading them?

[Lexi]

He just said hello.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Lexi told us she was through, but Ken worried that the North Koreans might still try to contact her.

[Ken]

What do we do if she's. If they keep trying to get in touch with her?

[Nicole Prolorath]

Then you gotta decide that for yourself.

[Lexi]

Yeah.

[Ken]

All right.

[Lexi]

Is there anything that we didn't ask you that you want to say? Not really. Like, I feel like I got out what really, really needed to be said. Good.

[Ken]

I'd like to find out where it came from.

[Lexi]

Me, too.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Me, too. As we shuffled out, it was hard not to think about how small the gap can be between an ordinary life and becoming part of a foreign nuclear funding operation. And harder still not to wonder how many more people are about to fall into that gap, The North Korean IT worker scheme may be one of the most ingenious sanctions of Asian operations ever constructed. American companies unknowingly funding the regime's weapons programs. American citizens unknowingly providing the infrastructure. But this ingenuity didn't appear out of nowhere. North Korea has been establishing new playbooks for more than a decade, and had we been paying closer attention, we might have seen this one coming. Instead, that North Korean caricature we cling to clouded our judgment, which is ironic because it was a Hollywood caricature of North Korea that put us in Pyongyang's digital crosshairs in the first place.

[Unknown Cybersecurity Expert]

And so for years we war gamed in this space. What will it look like if a rogue nuclear armed nation decides to attack the United States through cyber means? And we did a lot of different scenarios. We did electrical grid and water grid and attacks against missiles systems and the our overall ability to communicate.

[Ben]

So telecom.

[Unknown Cybersecurity Expert]

We all got it wrong, right? And no one anticipated that the first time that that would happen would be over. A movie about pot smoking journalists with Seth Rogen in it.

[Nicole Prolorath]

Returning to the hack that blindsided America and rewrote the playbook.

[Ken]

Hello North Korea.

[Nicole Prolorath]

That's next on To Catch a Thief. Follow To Catch a Thief to make sure you don't miss the next episode and if you like what you hear, rate and review the show. To Catch a Thief is co produced by me, Nicole Perleroth and Rubric in partnership with Pod People with special thanks to Julia Lee.