The arrest of a Ukrainian national previously in Tennessee on a student visa to study at Carson-Newman University was announced Thursday, with federal authorities alleging the foreign national participated in an “illicit revenue generation” scheme to aid the government of North Korea.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) reported that Oleksandr Didenko, a 27-year-old university student originally from Kiev, Ukraine, was arrested in Poland on May 6 on charges including identity theft of U.S. citizens for use by North Koreans.
Didenko is accused of participating in “a multi-year scheme to create accounts at U.S.-based freelance IT job search platforms and with U.S. money service transmitters in the names of false identities, including identities of U.S. persons, and sold these accounts to overseas IT workers.”
Prosecutors claim the student from Ukraine additionally ran a public website that “advertised creating, buying, and renting accounts at U.S. websites using false identities,” plus a full array of services to allow an individual to pose under a false identity and market themselves for remote IT work with unsuspecting companies.”
Didenko is additionally accused of creating or managing “approximately 87 ‘proxy’ identities,” and “sent or received $920,000 in U.S. dollar payments since July 2018.”
The DOJ claimed Didenko privately acknowledged “he believed he was assisting North Korean IT workers” with his actions.
According to Tennessee Conservative News, Didenko is enrolled as “a graduate student at Carson-Newman attending on a student visa.”
The outlet additionally reported Didenko was aided by an unnamed Colombian undergraduate student “who had applied for asylum in the U.S. and was also involved in the illegal enterprise.”
If convicted of all charges, Didenko faces a maximum sentence of 67.5 years in prison, according to the DOJ. Prosecutors noted that Didenko will face a “mandatory minimum of two years in prison” if convicted for aggravated identity theft.
While Didenko was arrested in Poland, 10 News reported that federal authorities searched both a dorm room at Carson-Newman and a private residence in Jefferson City.
In addition to Didenko, the DOJ accuses a Christina Marie Chapman, a U.S. citizen from Arizona, of leading the illicit enterprise with the help of three unidentified foreign nationals.
Chapman is accused of using stolen identities and information to defraud “U.S. companies across myriad industries, including multiple well-known Fortune 500 companies, U.S. banks, and other financial service providers,” and specifically accused of compromising and exploiting the “identities of more than 60 U.S. persons.”
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Carson-Newman University” by Carson-Newman University.
