The very long arm of the law

On confiscatory taxation, fake eyebrows, and schemes to get money into North Korea's paltry treasury

The metaphor of the "long arm of the law" has roots that are nearly 500 years old, but it has a whole new applicability in the Internet age. The US Department of Justice has indicted a group of people for using computers in the United States to facilitate remote work done by North Korean IT workers in order to fill North Korea's government treasury with income earned at wages prevailing in the US market.

■ The DOJ says that "North Korean IT workers could individually earn more than $300,000 a year in some cases [...] The North Korean government withheld up to 90 percent of wages of overseas workers, which generated an annual revenue to the North Korean government of hundreds of millions of dollars."

■ For a country with virtually no meaningful international trade other than a busy market in exporting wigs and fake eyebrows to China, "exporting" IT labor is a clever solution to generating some foreign cash. If the trade were legal, it would still be awful for the government to rob the workers of 90% of their earnings, but it would still be a rational strategy for the government.

■ But for good reasons, including those abuses of North Korean workers by their government, the United States has severe sanctions on doing business, electronic or otherwise, with North Korea. That's why the indictment points to an elaborate scheme to cover tracks and maintain the fraud. Nobody should underestimate the need for people in unlikely fields (like law enforcement) to develop and apply high-technology skills in ways that weren't on anyone's radar 25 years ago.