Bowie man outsourced government contract job to North Korean worker in China, federal complaint says
A nail salon technician in Bowie posed as a software developer at a Virginia-based government contractor doing national security work while a person in China actually did the job, according to a federal criminal complaint filed this week.
Minh Phuong Vong, a U.S. citizen who was born in Vietnam, and an unnamed collaborator identified only as “John Doe” have both been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.
Online communications between the two men indicated that Doe is a native of North Korea and a self-described software developer who lives in Shenyang, China, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baltimore said in a news release.
The U.S. Department of Justice also announced the charges in a news release about a larger North Korean conspiracy involving dispatching IT workers to infiltrate U.S. companies to raise money for weapons of mass destruction.
The criminal complaint against Vong and Doe, however, does not directly connect their activities to the North Korean fundraising operation. Vong told an FBI agent he was not aware of any connection between the man doing the IT work and North Korea, according to the complaint.
“Mr. Vong is accused of leveraging his U.S. citizenship to provide a North Korean national access to U.S. government systems related to our country’s national defense,” said William J. DelBagno, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Baltimore Field Office, in a statement.
According to the complaint, the government contractor, which is not identified, hired Vong after he appeared at an interview and submitted a falsified resume. The FBI alleged that Doe and possibly other remote IT workers based overseas actually did the job, working on a federal contract that’s part of a national defense program to develop software for government entities to coordinate aviation assets.
The contractor’s CEO conducted a video interview with Vong where he verified Vong’s identity with a U.S. passport and Maryland driver’s license, the Justice Department said in its news release, but Doe had appeared in an earlier video interview for the job and later at remote work meetings.
Vong provided Doe access to the company’s programs while he continued his day job at Allure Nail Spa in Bowie, according to the complaint. Vong was employed at the contractor from late March 2023 to mid-July in 2023.
The complaint says Vong earned about $45,000 in 2021, mostly from his work at the nail salon. However, while still working at the salon, Vong made around $430,000 in 2022 and at least $380,000 in 2023, with most of the income in those years coming from other employers.
The investigating FBI special agent, Aaron Zentner, wrote in the complaint that he had concluded Vong may have been working with one or multiple international collaborators interested in obtaining positions connected to the U.S. government.
“I submit there is probable cause to believe Vong did not perform the amount of work associated with the cumulative wages for more than 15 different employers, and that he instead outsourced the work and provided his credentials for protected computer systems to an unknown individual or individuals in places outside of the United States, such as China or Russia,” Zentner wrote in the complaint.
According to the complaint, Vong sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to accounts in China over the past few years. For example, one account with a profile that matched Vong’s information then sent $113,635 to accounts in China until around April 2023.
In a May 13 interview, Vong told Zentner that he had sent one or more laptops to his collaborator in China, according to the complaint.
In Skype chats with Vong, Doe made a reference to North Korea’s foreign minister visiting China and mentioned visiting “PY,” which the Zentner identified in the complaint as Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.
The Justice Department’s news release linked the case to a larger scheme in which the North Korean government dispatched thousands of workers to China and Russia to trick U.S businesses and others around the world into hiring them as freelancers. The money earned was then to be used for North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction programs.
“The alleged schemes likely benefited the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in evading U.S. sanctions and victimizing American businesses,” FBI National Security Branch Executive Assistant Director Larissa Knapp said in a statement Thursday. “By stealing the identities of American citizens to commit fraud, they obtained proceeds which likely helped fund the North Korean regime’s priorities including nuclear weapons programs.”
A federal district court judge will review the charges against Vong, which carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. Vong was ordered to surrender his passport, not open a new bank account or line of credit and undergo mental health treatment upon being released Thursday.
