A 36-year-old Akron man who ran a video-game software company allegedly turned his business into a front for a scheme that funneled money to the North Korean government, according to federal prosecutors. Trey Nolte is accused of helping place North Korean IT workers in remote jobs at U.S. companies using stolen American identities, a scheme prosecutors say generated $3 million and touched dozens of businesses across the country.
According to Cleveland.com, Nolte was charged in U.S. District Court in Cleveland with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and identity theft. The outlet reports he was charged by information rather than through a grand jury indictment, a procedural move that typically signals a defendant intends to plead guilty. Court records reviewed by the outlet list no attorney for Nolte, though he was assigned the federal public defender's office. A separate report from The Record from Recorded Future News described Nolte as someone who was not charged, even as prosecutors alleged he ran a shell company that facilitated the scheme — an account that conflicts with Cleveland.com's reporting on his charging status.
Prosecutors say Nolte helped carry out the operation alongside Chinese and American co-conspirators who placed IT workers into jobs at U.S. companies, per the Cleveland.com report. The scheme allegedly involved the theft of 25 U.S. citizens' identities and relied on fake documents — including driver's licenses, Social Security cards and degrees from an unnamed charter university — to make workers appear to live in the United States and qualify for remote positions. The affected companies reportedly operated in health care, communications, cybersecurity support and manufacturing.
Conflicting Numbers on Scale and Timeline
Cleveland.com reports the scheme affected 70 companies across 17 states, while a Justice Department announcement describes a broader, related conspiracy as affecting more than 70 U.S. companies, according to justice.gov. The timeline is similarly unsettled: the Justice Department says the indicted scheme ran from 2019 to around July 2025, while The New York Times reported that a scheme bilking 70 companies out of more than $3 million ran from 2019 to 2025.
Court records say Nolte worked directly with a scheme supervisor identified as Sun Sheng Meng, and prosecutors allege he recruited and trained others in the United States at Meng's direction. Nolte and others allegedly operated so-called laptop farms that let North Korean workers remotely access U.S. companies' computer systems, and court records indicate he had at least 24 laptops at his home as of 2023, per Cleveland.com's reporting.
A Video Game Company as Cover
Nolte registered Darkfalls LLC in 2020, describing it as a software company, and prosecutors allege he used it to set up bank accounts that funneled at least $320,000 to North Korea. He also allegedly kept about $20,000 for himself from the scheme and conducted job interviews with companies on behalf of the operation, the report states. Prosecutors say he set up other fake businesses used to launder money and, in February 2023, was told to set up a fake business in Texas — at which point he reportedly remarked that it looked like money laundering.
The Record's reporting on a related case describes similar tactics, alleging that a facilitator named Michael Bostelle recruited by Nolte sent packages to China, received work laptops from U.S. companies and laundered IT workers' paychecks. That outlet reported that Bostelle and co-defendant Juan Cecilio Pena Carrillo were accused of helping North Koreans earn more than $3 million from about 70 U.S. companies across 17 states, and that both men were indicted and arrested. Fourteen other people were charged in connection with the broader scheme as of October, including 10 people from China living near the North Korean border, others from Pennsylvania and Texas, and two unidentified defendants, according to Cleveland.com.
Part of a Wider Federal Crackdown
U.S. officials have repeatedly warned about North Korean schemes designed to evade sanctions and secure remote jobs at American companies, generating money for the North Korean government, including its missile programs, while also stealing sensitive information from U.S. businesses. The Times reported that intelligence officials consider IT-worker scams a primary method of funding Pyongyang's weapons program, alongside cryptocurrency theft, and that FBI investigators dismantled more than 40 laptop farms across Texas and seized nearly 200 computer devices as part of the broader crackdown.
The Record described the Texas raids as part of a long-running operation to disrupt laptop farms across the United States. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center has separately warned that North Korean IT workers post fake job openings on well-known job boards, often as freelance gigs with simple requests like interviewing on someone's behalf or receiving and hosting laptops in a home, according to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center. A related advisory reported by Kentucky.com states that North Korea is recruiting American facilitators to counter improved private-sector detection and law enforcement actions.
Federal authorities have brought similar cases elsewhere in recent months. The U.S. Department of Justice announced in April that two U.S. nationals were sentenced for facilitating a fraudulent remote IT worker scheme that generated $5 million in revenue for North Korea. In a separate action last year, the department said the FBI executed searches of 21 premises across 14 states between June 10 and June 17, 2025, targeting known and suspected laptop farms.
Cleveland.com's coverage of the Akron case was reported by Adam Ferrise, who covers federal courts for Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer and has worked at both outlets since 2013.
