A man from Maryland, 40 years old, could spend decades in jail because he is accused of working with people from China to get IT jobs that he could do from home with at least 13 different U.S. companies from 2021 to 2024. According to the Department of Justice, he was paid more than $970,000 for software development work that was actually done by agents who the government says are North Korean and work out of a post in Shenyang, China.

Authorities say the workers from China used their IT jobs for the company, which included providing software services to U.S. government agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration, to log into highly secure government systems from outside of the U.S. The Maryland man’s plan is part of a larger fraud operation, according to the Department of Justice. Trained North Koreans work with American middlemen to get fake remote IT jobs under different names, do the work from Russia or China, and then send their illegal salaries to Kim Jong Un, the dictatorial leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

A lot of people have been charged in connection with the plot, including Americans who have admitted to running “hosting computer farms” in their homes, where they keep a bunch of company laptops for a fee to make it look like the work is being done in the U.S. The UN thinks that the plan brings in between $250 million and $600 million a year and pays for North Korea’s illegal nuclear weapons program. The FBI, State Department, and Department of Justice all say that in the past few years, hundreds of Fortune 500 companies have hired thousands of DPRK IT workers.

For example, in the case of Minh Phuong Ngoc Vong from Maryland, the DOJ says he worked with engineers in China, one of whom called himself “William James.” According to court papers, the police thought James and the other John Does involved in the scheme were from North Korea. Police say Vong told them that an FBI agent named “William” talked to him through a video game app on his phone and told him he could “legally” make money by getting development jobs and then giving William access to his computer.

DOJ and court documents say Vong let James and the other unnamed conspirators make up a fake resume for him that said he had a degree from the University of Hawaii, 16 years of experience as a software developer, and a secret-level security clearance in the past. The DOJ said Vong, who worked in a nail and spa salon, did not have a degree or any skills in development.

At one of the 13 jobs, someone calling himself Vong is said to have joined an online interview with a senior software developer who suggested he get the job and took a picture of the senior software developer during the interview. After a successful final interview, the CEO of the Virginia-based company hired him. During the interview, Vong reportedly showed his Maryland driver’s license and U.S. passport to prove who he was, and the company took a screenshot of him holding up the documents a second time. Court records show that the police think these screen grabs show two different people: one is a North Korean IT worker pretending to be Vong, and the other is the real Vong from Maryland with his license and passport in hand.

Court records show that the company hired Vong to work on an FAA deal that required an app to keep an eye on aircraft in the air in the U.S. Defense, Homeland Security, and the Secret Service are just a few of the government groups that use the software. A company in Virginia sent Vong a MacBook Pro laptop that had management rights to download software. Court records show that the FAA also gave Vong a Personal Identity Verification card that let him into government buildings and systems. Vong is said to have put remote access software on the company computer so that James and his friend could use it from China.

The DOJ said that from March to July 2023, the Virginia company paid Vong more than $28,000 for work that was done by James and other unknown people. During his time there, someone named Vong went to work Zoom meetings and held daily meetings with his team to talk about his to-do list. In exchange for his guilty plea, Vong said that the job in Virginia was just one of 13 that he had between 2021 and 2024. A number of them did work for the U.S. government as well as the FAA. It was discovered that Vong might have another job after the Virginia company sent his information to the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency for a secret clearance. This caused them to fire him.