US Duo Sentenced for Running Laptop Farms for North Korean IT Workers
US Citizens Sentenced for Facilitating North Korea’s Laptop Farms
Two American citizens, Matthew Isaac Knoot and Erick Ntekereze Prince, have been sentenced to 18 months in prison each for facilitating North Korea’s extensive network of remote IT workers.
Knoot, from Nashville, Tennessee, and Prince, from New York, operated laptop farms in their homes, deceiving US companies into believing that the IT workers were based in the country. Their schemes affected over 70 US companies and generated approximately $1.2 million in revenue for the North Korean regime.
- Knoot received laptops from unsuspecting US companies and installed remote desktop applications to enable co-conspirators to work remotely.
- Prince’s company, Taggcar, supplied IT workers to victim US companies from June 2020 to August 2024.
Prince pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy in November 2025 and was sentenced in May, along with an order to forfeit $89,000. Knoot was arrested in August 2024, after a year-long FBI investigation, during which he made false and misleading statements and destroyed evidence.
The two North Korean operatives join a growing list of individuals charged and imprisoned for supporting the regime’s scheme, which generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually for the country’s military and organizations involved in its weapons programs.
Auditors have seized cryptocurrency linked to the theft and targeted US-based facilitators who provided forged or stolen identities and hosted laptop farms for North Korean operatives.
Federal judges have previously sentenced others for their involvement in the scheme, including Keija Wang and Zhenxing Wang, Audricus Phagnasay, Jason Salazar, and Alexander Paul Travis, Oleksandr Didenko, and Christina Chapman.
“These sentences hold accountable US nationals who enabled North Korea’s illicit efforts to infiltrate US networks and profit on the back of US companies,” said John A. Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for national security.
The National Security Division will continue to pursue those who, through deception and cyber-enabled fraud, threaten US national security.
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