The Justice Department sentenced Matthew Issac Knoot of Nashville and Erick Ntekereze Prince of New York to 18 months each in federal prison, closing two separate laptop farm operations that routed North Korean IT workers into American companies.
The pair’s schemes touched almost 70 U.S. companies and generated a combined $1.2 million for the North Korean regime. Each man received laptops from unsuspecting U.S. employers, then installed remote desktop software to let co-conspirators work from anywhere while appearing to be based stateside.
Prince’s company, Taggcar, contracted to supply IT workers from June 2020 through August 2024. He pleaded guilty in November 2025 to wire fraud conspiracy. He and his co-conspirators collectively placed workers at 64 U.S. companies, earning nearly $950,000 in salary payments. A federal judge ordered Prince to forfeit $89,000, the amount he personally netted.
Knoot’s timeline runs longer and uglier. The FBI searched his home a year before his August 2024 arrest, and officials say he made false statements and destroyed evidence. Victim companies paid North Korean workers linked to his farm more than $250,000 between July 2022 and August 2023. Sentenced May 1, he was ordered to pay $15,100 in restitution and forfeit another $15,100.
“Hosting laptops for DPRK IT workers is a federal crime which directly impacts our national security,” said Brett Leatherman, lead of the FBI’s Cyber Division.
The scheme isn’t contained. It’s infiltrated an undetermined number of businesses, including hundreds of Fortune 500 companies, generating hundreds of millions annually for North Korea’s weapons programs.
DOJ has already sent seven others to prison for supporting the same scheme: Keija Wang, Zhenxing Wang, Audricus Phagnasay, Jason Salazar, Alexander Paul Travis, Oleksandr Didenko, and Christina Chapman.
James Okafor