This case isn’t the story of a criminal mastermind — it’s the story of a woman who quietly turned her Arizona home into a pipeline for North Korean operatives simply because she never once stopped to ask, “Should I be doing this?” Christina Chapman built a “laptop farm,” laundered millions, forged federal documents, and handed hostile foreign actors access to major U.S. companies… all while narrating her crimes in chat logs like she thought no one would ever read them. It’s bleak, it’s bizarre, and it’s a reminder that sometimes the biggest threat to national security isn’t a spy or a hacker — it’s an ordinary person making catastrophically stupid choices over and over again.
Sources:
- https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/arizona-woman-sentenced-17m-it-worker-fraud-scheme-illegally-generated-revenue-north
- https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/arizona-woman-sentenced-17m-information-technology-worker-fraud-scheme-generated-revenue
- https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68534209/united-states-v-chapman/
- https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68534169/united-states-v-chapman/
- https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-coordinated-nationwide-actions-combat-north-korean-remote
- https://sherwood.news/business/north-korea-freelance-it-scheme-raising-cash/
Transcript
00:00:10:02 – 00:00:24:56
Dr. Keith Jones
What’s up, you crazy bastards? Welcome to another episode of eCrimeBytes. This is where I research the court documentation and roast the criminals so you don’t have to. And trust me, today’s roast is well seasoned.
00:00:25:01 – 00:00:37:12
Dr. Keith Jones
Okay, so today we have an absolute gem. We’re talking about a woman named Christina Chapman who ran what the feds called a “laptop farm” from her house in Arizona.
00:00:37:17 – 00:00:47:57
Dr. Keith Jones
Yeah, while other people were out there growing tomatoes, she was cultivating fully operational North Korean remote workers, like some kind of geopolitical Farmville.
00:00:48:02 – 00:01:06:01
Dr. Keith Jones
And this wasn’t just any farm. This was a high tech fraud farm helping what the court docs strongly suggest are North Korean IT workers steal identities, get high paying US tech jobs, and funnel millions of dollars back to the regime.
00:01:06:05 – 00:01:23:02
Dr. Keith Jones
She was basically the most important person in Kim Jong Un’s budget planning. An absolutely wild career pivot for someone in Arizona. One minute your grocery shopping at Safeway, the next you’re underwriting a rogue state’s payroll like it’s your side hustle.
00:01:23:07 – 00:01:57:01
Dr. Keith Jones
It was a huge, sophisticated operation that defrauded over 300 U.S. companies, which is more clients the most real IT consultants ever land. And we’re not talking about small time shops, either. The feds described these as blue chip companies, including get this, a top five national television network, a premier Silicon Valley technology company, an iconic American car manufacturer, a high end retail chain, and one of the most recognizable media and entertainment companies in the world.
00:01:57:06 – 00:02:22:35
Dr. Keith Jones
But this isn’t a story of criminal mastermind. Holy hell. This is a story of someone who created a perfect evidence locker for the FBI. In her own chat logs. She practically messaged her way to federal prison. At this point, the FBI didn’t need a warrant. They just needed her notification history. If crimes were solved by screen time reports, she’d be doing life. And the documents? The court documents?
00:02:22:40 – 00:02:26:03
Dr. Keith Jones
Oh, boy. They tell a whole story. Let me walk you through them.
00:02:26:08 – 00:02:53:14
Dr. Keith Jones
So what was Christina Chapman actually doing? I mean, besides turning her suburban home into the Dollar Tree version of the CIA? Well, we know exactly what she did. Because the feds made her sign a 17 page confession as part of her plea deal. It’s called the statement of offense, and it lays out everything. So here’s the setup. You’ve got these highly skilled overseas IT workers backed by North Korea.
00:02:53:18 – 00:03:14:20
Dr. Keith Jones
They want to earn some hard currency for the regime, but they’re blocked by international sanctions. You know, little things like global laws and every major country saying absolutely not. They can’t get hired by a U.S. company. They need to look, sound and appear to be working in America if they want to try.
00:03:14:25 – 00:03:25:48
Dr. Keith Jones
So how does a woman in Arizona become the US hub for an international fraud ring? Well, the court file says that in March 2020, she was approached on LinkedIn.
00:03:25:53 – 00:03:58:28
Dr. Keith Jones
That pause was for effect. Let me just repeat that. This is not some encrypted, anonymous dark web forum. Not Signal. Not Telegram. Not WhatsApp. Not even a burner phone taped to a stray raccoon. LinkedIn, LinkedIn. So this is the website designed to tie everything to your real world professional identity. An unknown coconspirator messaged her and asked her to, quote unquote, be the US face of their company.
00:03:58:33 – 00:04:11:36
Dr. Keith Jones
And she was like, sure sounds legit. She created a digital paper trail connecting her real identity to the conspiracy from this very first message. You have to respect the commitment to transparency, right?
00:04:11:41 – 00:04:31:28
Dr. Keith Jones
So now she’s quote unquote, the face of this company. The first step for the overseas crew is getting hired. And the court documents say that they either stole identities outright or get this convinced, U.S. persons to loan their identities for money.
00:04:31:33 – 00:04:38:07
Dr. Keith Jones
Wow. I wonder how much they paid them for that. I couldn’t imagine loaning somebody my identity. That is just absolutely crazy.
00:04:38:12 – 00:04:55:30
Dr. Keith Jones
But how did Christina and her coconspirators know if these stolen or loaned identities were any good? You want a clean record? Basically, to go work at a company, right? So how do they know that a fictitious person like Danielle B didn’t have a criminal record?
00:04:55:35 – 00:05:08:12
Dr. Keith Jones
Simple. They ran background checks on these identities, and Christina Chapman paid for it. The court file says that she gave a coconspirator her personal debit card
00:05:08:17 – 00:05:12:36
Dr. Keith Jones
to pay for an account at a online background check service.
00:05:12:41 – 00:05:29:14
Dr. Keith Jones
And they use this to run this account to run criminal history and social security number traces on their stolen identities. In her message to her coconspirators about it, she said as a total charge to my invoices. Okay, we’re going to see her invoices in a bit.
00:05:29:19 – 00:05:41:21
Dr. Keith Jones
She was literally expensing her identity laundering service. If she had an accountant, that man would have jumped out of the window at this point. I guess tax write offs are important even in a federal crime, right?
00:05:41:26 – 00:05:49:46
Dr. Keith Jones
So they got their clean fake identities at this point, and they pass the interviews to get hired as Daniel B or Andy P.
00:05:49:53 – 00:05:52:35
Dr. Keith Jones
This is how the court documents referred to the identities.
00:05:52:40 – 00:06:05:04
Dr. Keith Jones
And this is where we get to the central problem of the whole case. When Daniel B got his new high paying tech job, the company had to ship him a work laptop. And where do they send it?
00:06:05:08 – 00:06:14:42
Dr. Keith Jones
Not to a random P.O. box, not to any shipping service. They sent it directly to Christina Chapman’s house in Arizona.
00:06:14:47 – 00:06:18:50
Dr. Keith Jones
So she used her own home address as the drop point.
00:06:18:55 – 00:06:25:37
Dr. Keith Jones
This, my friends, is the laptop farm, the only farm in America where nothing grows except for felonies.
00:06:25:42 – 00:06:38:20
Dr. Keith Jones
But she wasn’t just a mailbox. She was active tech support. She gets the computer connected to her internet using her home IP address as the digital cover, and install remote access software.
00:06:38:20 – 00:06:44:22
Dr. Keith Jones
So the real IT worker in North Korea could log in to these computers in her home.
00:06:44:27 – 00:06:55:38
Dr. Keith Jones
She was the ultimate IT admin, except her users were literally hostile foreign actors. Honestly, she was one password reset away from being an honorary member of the North Korean I.T. department.
00:06:55:43 – 00:07:01:26
Dr. Keith Jones
And she wasn’t just careless. She was proud of her work. A coconspirator at one point asks her.
00:07:01:31 – 00:07:12:10
Dr. Keith Jones
I want to access that remotely. Do you know how to install any desk? And her brazen reply. I do it practically every day. So she bragged about it.
00:07:12:15 – 00:07:26:38
Dr. Keith Jones
She was also the technical problem solver. And by technical, I mean she was out there providing tier one half support, the kind where the solution is mostly praying the company security team is on a lunch break.
00:07:26:43 – 00:07:52:33
Dr. Keith Jones
What that means is she didn’t want the U.S. workers or the U.S. companies IT department to catch on. So she’s hoping that they’re just not paying attention. So in one chat, her coconspirator the fake employee, the one from North Korea, had another developer. A third person. So now there’s Christina, the North Korean person, and then a third developer, all logging into the same laptop.
00:07:52:38 – 00:08:03:40
Dr. Keith Jones
This, of course, triggered a security alert on the machine that popped up on the screen because, shockingly, with three people log in to the same laptop from three different continents, Microsoft tends to notice.
00:08:03:45 – 00:08:08:15
Dr. Keith Jones
So the fake employee messages Chapman, who is physically at the laptop and asks
00:08:08:19 – 00:08:13:34
Dr. Keith Jones
any way to hide it in my way? Now you have to imagine there’s probably some translation going on.
00:08:13:36 – 00:08:30:46
Dr. Keith Jones
So when I do these readings of the other workers, you’re going to hear misspellings and all that, and I’m just keeping it as is. And he says, any way to hide it in my way? And Christina looks at that and says, oh, he must be talking about the security panel. And she goes, she goes ahead and closes it for him.
00:08:30:51 – 00:08:46:05
Dr. Keith Jones
So he’s literally asking her to help him hide his own secret developer security alert from the U.S. company’s IT department in case they’re looking at the screen, too. It’s a conspiracy within a conspiracy. And she’s just doing it.
00:08:46:10 – 00:08:54:16
Dr. Keith Jones
But my favorite tech support story. Oh, buckle up, because this one deserves its own Emmy. One of her buddies was panicking.
00:08:54:18 – 00:08:59:35
Dr. Keith Jones
He messages her, hi, please help me. It’s very urgent. I have to meet team in 30 minutes.
00:08:59:40 – 00:09:30:38
Dr. Keith Jones
So she jumps right on the Microsoft Teams call for him. She’s not just aiding a conspiracy here. She’s apparently auditioning to be the body double for the fake employees in this operation. The reason this fake employee over North Korea was joining the meeting from an unauthorized overseas device. And she was joining from the company laptop in Arizona. So the company, the U.S. companies, IT department would see two devices logged in under the same name.
00:09:30:48 – 00:09:35:09
Dr. Keith Jones
Daniel B. She messages back, who do I say I am?
00:09:35:14 – 00:09:52:38
Dr. Keith Jones
Honestly, at this point, she could have just said I’m Daniel B’s emotional support human, right? Her excuse for using multiple devices. She said I just typed in the name Daniel. If they ask why you’re using two devices, just say the microphone on your laptop doesn’t work right.
00:09:52:40 – 00:09:55:56
Dr. Keith Jones
Most people are fine with that explanation.
00:09:56:01 – 00:10:01:45
Dr. Keith Jones
Holy hell. I’m sure that was the first time a night department ever heard the excuse the mic doesn’t work.
00:10:01:49 – 00:10:26:11
Dr. Keith Jones
So her job wasn’t just tech support, she was also criminal HR. She was basically the world’s worst HR rep. Like, if the onboarding packet came with a ski mask and a burner phone, she personally forged federal documents like full blown government forms. Most people get nervous filling out a W-4, and she’s out there free handing felony signatures like it’s arts and crafts.
00:10:26:11 – 00:10:46:35
Dr. Keith Jones
Our a coconspirator messages her please ship out the hand sign I-9 form by the end of the day. And she replies, yes, I’ll get it out today. I did my best to copy your signature. And he just replies, hah hah thank you. The fraud ring had better customer service than most legitimate companies.
00:10:46:40 – 00:10:48:54
Dr. Keith Jones
But she wasn’t always the master forger.
00:10:48:59 – 00:11:10:01
Dr. Keith Jones
A coconspirator sent her an image of a fake, temporary Alabama driver’s license and asked her to do a check if it looks real. He messages: Is this the right form? Do you have any other idea? Again, that’s exactly how he typed it. Do you have any of idea? And he’s asking her for a quality control on his fake ID and her expert professional opinion.
00:11:10:06 – 00:11:34:35
Dr. Keith Jones
Yes. I guess it’s the same image I get when I Google. So she googled it. Fantastic. Nothing screams international crime syndicate like relying on the same research method teenagers used to cheat on their homework. When the most sophisticated part of your international identity fraud scheme is reverse image search. You’re probably in trouble.
00:11:34:39 – 00:11:37:20
Dr. Keith Jones
And the identities themselves were a mess.
00:11:37:24 – 00:12:04:06
Dr. Keith Jones
It wasn’t identity theft, this was this was identity thrift store shopping. One of her coconspirators needed help with a background story for an identity, Daniel B. Why? Because the real Daniel B had a criminal record. So the brilliant plan to use a stolen identity was to use a stolen identity of someone already flagged by the system.
00:12:04:11 – 00:12:10:53
Dr. Keith Jones
Chapman even had a message or coconspirator to ask for details about Daniel B, so they could build a cover story for this guy.
00:12:10:57 – 00:12:26:03
Dr. Keith Jones
Holy hell, this is a masterclass in failure. At this point, the only way it could have been worse is to accidentally use the identity of a guy currently in prison. They were recruiting identities off the Do Not Hire list.
00:12:26:07 – 00:12:39:25
Dr. Keith Jones
So the laptops are farmed. The identities are faked. Now comes everyone’s favorite part of the international crime ring. The money. The cold. Hard. Please don’t let the FBI find this cash.
00:12:39:30 – 00:12:49:22
Dr. Keith Jones
The paychecks. Over 17 million across the whole scheme were sent to bank accounts that Christina Chapman controlled.
00:12:49:27 – 00:12:59:03
Dr. Keith Jones
Basically, she became the unofficial CFO of North Korea. Except her accounting system was held together with duct tape, panic, and whatever app she happened to have open at the time.
00:12:59:08 – 00:13:11:55
Dr. Keith Jones
So you may ask yourself, what was her personal cut for all of this? About $176,000. That’s it.
00:13:12:00 – 00:13:24:56
Dr. Keith Jones
She took out three federal felonies, risked being the star of an FBI training slideshow, and jeopardized the rest of her life for a cut so small it would barely cover the cost of her criminal defense.
00:13:25:01 – 00:13:38:34
Dr. Keith Jones
We know some of this because the court documents show that between April and July of 2022, the US company made six direct deposits totaling over $27,000 for just one fake worker right into her account.
00:13:38:39 – 00:13:46:48
Dr. Keith Jones
That’s not a red flag. That’s a red billboard flashing “investigate me” to every federal agent within 200 miles.
00:13:46:53 – 00:14:02:17
Dr. Keith Jones
But it wasn’t always that easy. Here she is at the bank, trying to deposit a physical check and texting her coconspirator in full meltdown mode. She’s holding a check for Jerry P, but the account belongs to someone else entirely.
00:14:02:22 – 00:14:37:51
Dr. Keith Jones
And she messages. Are you there? I’m at the bank now with your check. Is the account in your name? I need to know. And the Coconspirator tells her the account actually belongs to an Anastasia. Not Jerry P. So picture this. She’s standing in front of a bank teller, palms sweaty, texting a North Korean agent like she’s asking her boyfriend: What kind of chips he wants from Walmart? This is the least discreet bank fraud attempt in U.S. history. Honestly, she could have worn a t shirt that says, ask me about my felonies, and it would have drawn less attention at this point.
00:14:37:56 – 00:14:54:32
Dr. Keith Jones
And the best part? She knew she was doing something monumentally stupid. A coconspirator admits a check is for a fake person, Irving B, and she replies, that’s probably why it didn’t go through my bank, as the name is fake.
00:14:54:37 – 00:15:06:35
Dr. Keith Jones
I could go to prison for fraud for that. And then, because we are apparently living in a sitcom, she immediately agrees to try depositing that check again.
00:15:06:40 – 00:15:10:23
Dr. Keith Jones
The dedication to poor decision making is almost admirable.
00:15:10:28 – 00:15:39:39
Dr. Keith Jones
And now the piece de resistance of her banking disasters. A bank got suspicious when another deposit for Andy P her coconspirator Tommy, a name that does not scream elite cyber operative from North Korea suggests: then we can prepare one of my U.S. friend. He has real U.S. number. And he can pretend to be Andy. And then she.
00:15:39:41 – 00:15:55:39
Dr. Keith Jones
Christina runs with it. She tells him, your friend here needs to go get a SIM card, saying he’s buying it for his friend Andy P so it gets put in his name. You guys obviously have a Social Security number for him, and she literally giving him tutorials on how to build a fake person.
00:15:55:44 – 00:16:00:46
Dr. Keith Jones
She’s not a coconspirator. She’s a customer success manager for a financial crime.
00:16:00:51 – 00:16:23:34
Dr. Keith Jones
And when the bank still won’t budge and insisted that Andy has to show up in person, what was her master plan? Tommy says he’ll prep a friend with Andy’s ID, and she replies, we need somebody who’s going to look like Andy. Ma’am, you’re suggesting that they cast a stunt double to commit bank fraud? What is this? Ocean’s 14?
00:16:23:39 – 00:16:52:13
Dr. Keith Jones
So the money is in. And now she has to get it out. And yes, this is absolutely how the feds close the case on her. The documents describe how she took that direct deposit money and personally transferred it overseas. This wasn’t money laundering. This was money rinsing. No layers, no shell companies, no crypto. Just a direct line from this payroll account to suspicious country.
00:16:52:13 – 00:16:59:19
Dr. Keith Jones
And it’s the smoking gun equivalent of hanging the FBI’s USB drive labeled top secret crime stuff.
00:16:59:24 – 00:17:29:00
Dr. Keith Jones
And where was all this being shipped? Right. Her shipping logs show that between 2022 and 2023, she sent at least 49 devices overseas. The top destination Dandong, China, a city sitting directly on the border with North Korea. Because nothing says totally innocent package like sending laptops to the exact border crossing used for half of North Korea’s illicit trade.
00:17:29:04 – 00:17:37:00
Dr. Keith Jones
She might as well have written. Hope this helps the regime. Hearts. Christina on the customs form.
00:17:37:05 – 00:18:08:46
Dr. Keith Jones
By this point, they’re not just trying to get jobs. They’re getting greedy. And this is where they overreach. They aim for U.S. government. A fake worker got a remote contractor position with.,get this, DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. They used her address in the scheme. It hit a wall because DHS or ICE requires physical fingerprints.
00:18:08:51 – 00:18:14:01
Dr. Keith Jones
The worker well, did not submit them. And so the worker was not hired.
00:18:14:06 – 00:18:23:10
Dr. Keith Jones
So your multimillion dollar international fraud ring was stopped by the same technology that unlocks an iPhone. That’s pretty brilliant.
00:18:23:15 – 00:18:30:00
Dr. Keith Jones
And my other favorite government attempt. They try to infiltrate the U.S. General Services Administration or the GSA.
00:18:30:05 – 00:18:35:10
Dr. Keith Jones
And when the worker using the stolen identity. Donald C.
00:18:35:15 – 00:18:49:39
Dr. Keith Jones
Yes, I had to look twice. Dong C spelled dong. And the last initial is C. When Dong applied, he provided Chapman’s address as his home and listed Christina as his spouse.
00:18:49:44 – 00:19:02:40
Dr. Keith Jones
So Christina is married to Dong, his spouse. And the name? I mean, come on, you can’t write this stuff, right? I mean, it sounds like a bad dick joke, but it was really in the court documentation.
00:19:02:45 – 00:19:19:24
Dr. Keith Jones
So unsurprisingly, this whole scheme did not work. The fake Dong C attended one meeting, couldn’t speak, and was terminated right after. Shocking. This is probably because his spouse, Christina, was busy mailing out laptops to China for other fake employees.
00:19:19:29 – 00:19:44:28
Dr. Keith Jones
So Christina’s clients weren’t just working. They were also stealing. Tthe court file details that one worker she helped named Marcus M was caught causing 15 separate unauthorized data transfers from a U.S. company to overseas. And this is 15 times. Another worker stole a large amount of data from a restaurant chain.
00:19:44:33 – 00:19:52:42
Dr. Keith Jones
And she got sloppy. After the data thief Darius W took a fake leave of absence, he asked her to ship him his laptop.
00:19:52:47 – 00:19:53:41
Dr. Keith Jones
And what did she do?
00:19:53:45 – 00:20:08:25
Dr. Keith Jones
She didn’t hide the evidence, she says. Or the court document says that on October 25th, 2023, Chatman sent Darius a photograph of the receipt confirming that the laptop was shipped to Pakistan.
00:20:08:30 – 00:20:14:15
Dr. Keith Jones
She sent him a receipt, which is basically the criminal equivalent of leaving a Yelp review for your own felony.
00:20:14:20 – 00:20:17:40
Dr. Keith Jones
Unbelievable. Next time, just put the receipt in the shredder.
00:20:17:40 – 00:20:19:39
Dr. Keith Jones
Christina, it’s not that hard.
00:20:19:44 – 00:20:39:41
Dr. Keith Jones
So she treated this whole thing like a chaotic, dysfunctional business and even invoiced for all of it. The court doc says that on a monthly basis, she charged for, quote unquote, rent and other fees, logging into laptops, tech support, shipping, all itemized on an invoice each month.
00:20:39:45 – 00:20:42:35
Dr. Keith Jones
And she even helped these North Korean workers
00:20:42:39 – 00:20:52:32
Dr. Keith Jones
get away with tax fraud because a coconspirator requested her assistance in obtaining a IRS form W-2 for one of the fake workers.
00:20:52:37 – 00:21:03:00
Dr. Keith Jones
Calling it really important for our work. And of course it was. You got to pay your taxes on your international espionage earnings, right? That’s how you stay legit.
00:21:03:05 – 00:21:06:21
Dr. Keith Jones
She even complained about her clients in a message, writing
00:21:06:26 – 00:21:17:36
Dr. Keith Jones
to one of her clients about some other client. She said. I’ll tell the other people who start tomorrow morning that Yuri says he’s more important because I don’t know who is on who’s team.
00:21:17:41 – 00:21:28:41
Dr. Keith Jones
I can’t reveal other names. I got some people in trouble for that before, she said. I got some people in trouble for that before. I really wish I knew more about that little scenario.
00:21:28:46 – 00:22:02:49
Dr. Keith Jones
But this one, this is my absolute favorite. One of her North Korean buddies says, hey, we need to switch payment from these other two services that we’ve been using to this third service. And she says back to their as a criminal mastermind, she says, back to the North Korean… That sounds good. The feds here now are tracking my every penny on service one and service two. They aren’t doing that on my service three yet. So there you go. She’s writing exactly what she’s doing in her messages that can be used against her later.
00:22:02:54 – 00:22:10:22
Dr. Keith Jones
Hahaha. She wrote that she messaged the feds are on us, so let’s use this other platform that they haven’t found yet.
00:22:10:27 – 00:22:15:21
Dr. Keith Jones
You realize you just created exhibit A for the conspiracy part of your charge, right?
00:22:15:25 – 00:22:20:31
Dr. Keith Jones
Holy hell. This chat is the criminal equivalent of sending a selfie from a getaway car.
00:22:20:36 – 00:22:37:22
Dr. Keith Jones
Which brings us to the grand finale. She repeatedly messaged her own fears. She told her coconspirator: What happens when my bank account gets flagged by the federal government? I get in trouble and I go to prison in another group chat. She tries to set boundaries but just ended up confessing again.
00:22:37:23 – 00:22:43:05
Dr. Keith Jones
She wrote in the future, I hope you guys can find other people to do your physical I-9.
00:22:43:10 – 00:22:55:55
Dr. Keith Jones
These are federal documents. I will send them for you, but have someone else do the paperwork. I can go to in all caps federal prison for falsifying federal documents.
00:22:56:00 – 00:23:01:46
Dr. Keith Jones
She literally drew the line at filling out the form, but not mailing the fraud.
00:23:01:51 – 00:23:06:17
Dr. Keith Jones
Totally fine. I guess everybody has her own comfort level with felony charges,
00:23:06:22 – 00:23:35:26
Dr. Keith Jones
But she wasn’t quite done bumbling yet. When the FBI finally came knocking at her door and October of 2023, she was actually on a flight home. And when she found out remotely, what did she do? She jumped back into the group chat with the North Koreans and she wrote: Shut the fuck up, the FBI is at my house. And the best part? They didn’t believe her. They thought she was joking. So she ended up also deleting a bunch of Skype
00:23:35:30 – 00:23:39:39
Dr. Keith Jones
messages to try to cover her tracks, which, spoiler alert, didn’t work.
00:23:39:44 – 00:23:50:30
Dr. Keith Jones
So with a chat history like that, what’s a defense attorney to do? It can’t do anything, unsurprisingly. On February 4th, 2025, Christina Chapman pled guilty.
00:23:50:35 – 00:24:05:37
Dr. Keith Jones
The evidence, in her words, was overwhelming. She pled guilty to three major counts. The first was conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The second was aggravated identity theft. And third was conspiracy to launder monetary instruments.
00:24:05:41 – 00:24:14:58
Dr. Keith Jones
On July 24th, 2025, the judge handed down the sentence and Chapman got 102 months in federal prison, which I can’t do the math. I had to grab my calculator.
00:24:14:58 – 00:24:41:58
Dr. Keith Jones
That’s eight and a half years. She also has three years of supervised release after she gets out, and that 1% cut that she made. Did she use it to pay her criminal defense lawyer? Nope. The court ordered her to forfeit that whole monetary amount for exactly $176,000, and she has to pay back every dime she made with that.
00:24:42:03 – 00:24:56:43
Dr. Keith Jones
But she has $20,000 on top of that, which was restitution to the victims for paying for, responses and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, paying money that they didn’t really get services for, I don’t think.
00:24:56:48 – 00:25:04:57
Dr. Keith Jones
So. She had to pay back her winnings, and she had to pay $20,000 on top of that and go to prison for eight and a half years, which is quite a long time.
00:25:05:01 – 00:25:31:51
Dr. Keith Jones
But don’t worry about Christina, okay? She has plans for her future because nothing fuels entrepreneurial spirit. Like eight and a half years of federally mandated reflection in prison. In her letter to the judge asking for leniency, she outlined her post-prison career goals. She wrote, I would like to continue to pursue the books that I have been working on writing and starting my own underwear company.
00:25:31:56 – 00:25:56:05
Dr. Keith Jones
You cannot make this stuff up. From international North Korean fraud ring to underwear mogul. That’s quite a career pivot. So sharp it should come with the neck brace. I’m just glad she’s aiming high. Federal prison is the perfect focus group for a new line of durable undergarments. If your product can survive the laundry rotation at FCI Phoenix, it can survive anything.
00:25:56:10 – 00:26:18:29
Dr. Keith Jones
Well, listeners, the case of Christina Chapman is a wild one. It’s a national security story about sanctions busting. It’s a cybercrime story about the vulnerabilities of a work from home world. And it’s a masterclass in what happens when someone with zero operational security tries to run a multinational fraud ring using the same laptop they check Facebook on.
00:26:18:34 – 00:26:25:48
Dr. Keith Jones
But most of all, it’s a very human story about a series of bafflingly poor decisions.
00:26:25:53 – 00:26:40:15
Dr. Keith Jones
It proves that in a digital age, the smoking gun isn’t a gun at all. Sometimes it’s just hitting send and a message that says, I can go to federal prison for this, which she did multiple times.
00:26:40:20 – 00:26:53:34
Dr. Keith Jones
What a case. This thing had everything. Identity theft, money laundering, technical incompetence, government infiltration. Attempts that failed harder than a crypto bro portfolio.
00:26:53:39 – 00:27:12:28
Dr. Keith Jones
A level of denial that should be studied by psychologists. And a finale straight out of dark comedy written by someone who’s been awake for about 72 hours. All right, you crazy bastards. Thanks for tuning in. I hope to see you on our next episode, which will be another crazy case just like this. Thanks. Bye.
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