US sanctions North Korean IT worker network in Russia weeks after Texas laptop farm raids

On October 28, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned 10 people and one company tied to a network that placed fake North Korean IT workers in American companies and converted their cryptocurrency wages into cash for Pyongyang. The action freezes any US-held assets of those named and bars Americans from transactions with them. The company was First Financial and Technical Development Center, a North Korean-controlled firm in Russia; the named Russians included Ilya Aleksandrovich Boykov and Vitold Viktorovich Obertas, crypto intermediaries. The sanctions followed Justice Department raids this month on Texas laptop farms, which let overseas workers appear to log in from the US, and two arrests.