Things didn’t seem good for US electric vehicle (EV) startup Fisker in its dying days, but new reports allege it had a North Korean spy on its books – with their pay checks reportedly going towards the nation’s ballistic missile projects. That’s what Danish publication The Engineer has reported, and Fisker wasn’t the only US company targeted and effectively scammed. According to The Engineer, which had access to US legal documents, Fisker employed an external IT employee known as Kou Thao, who had his home address listed in Arizona.
However, the resident of the home was actually a now-49-year-old woman named Christina Chapman, who the FBI alleges helped North Korean nationals – such as Mr Thao – use her residential address and IP address to pull off their scam. 100s of new car deals are available through CarExpert right now. Get the experts on your side and score a great deal.
Browse now . Ms Chapman, the FBI has alleged, ran and facilitated a ‘laptop farm’ where North Korean IT workers could use her IP address to log into the computers to work for US companies such as Fisker, despite being in Russia or China. Fisker wasn’t the only company targeted since Ms Chapman allegedly began taking part in the scam in 2020, with Mr Thao joining the EV brand in late 2022.
Mr Thao and the other reported 18 North Korean agents would “perform work” for the companies which employed them, with Ms Chapman collecting their pay checks which would be funnelled back to Nor.