United States of America v. Alexander Paul Travis, Jason Salazar, and Audricus Phagnasay

Augusta, Georgia, criminal Defense lawyers represented the Defendants charged with engaging in a wire fraud conspiracy.

Alexander Paul Travis, 35, of Augusta, Jason Salazar, 30, of Clovis, California, and Audricus Phagnasay, 25, of Fresno, California, for engaging in a nationwide scheme that enabled North Korean workers to access U.S.-based computer networks.

The Defendants were contacted by overseas IT workers, and allowed those workers to create resumes in the defendants’ names with false information about their experience; to use those false representations and identities to obtain remote employment with U.S. companies; to pass employer vetting procedures, including video interviews, drug testing, and fingerprinting; and, to open bank accounts in the defendants’ names to receive payment from the U.S. companies.

In each case, the defendant would receive a laptop computer from the company that hired the fictitious worker, and then would install unauthorized software to enable the overseas IT worker to access the computers remotely while appearing to work from the defendant’s address in the United States.

Travis, who was an active-duty member of the United States Army stationed at Fort Gordon at the time, received at least $51,397 for his participation in the scheme. Phagnasay and Salazar earned at least $3,450 and $4,500, respectively. The fraudulent scheme earned approximately $1.28 million in salary payments from the victim U.S. companies, the vast majority of which were sent to the IT workers overseas.

“These defendants facilitated a scheme to deceive U.S. companies into hiring foreign remote IT workers,” said FBI Georgia Acting Special Agent in Charge Peter Ellis. “The FBI will continue to work with our partners to expose and mitigate these fraudulent IT schemes and provide support to victims of North Korean cyber actors.”

The FBI Augusta (Georgia) Resident Agency is investigating the cases, along with the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, Assistant U.S. Attorney L. Alexander Hamner for the Southern District of Georgia and Trial Attorney Jacques Singer-Emery of the NSD National Security Cyber Section are prosecuting the cases.

Alexander Paul Travis, 35, of Augusta, was sentenced to 12 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to forfeit $193,265. Jason Salazar, 30, of Clovis, California, and Audricus Phagnasay, 25, of Fresno, California, were sentenced and ordered to forfeit $409,876 and $681,926, respectively.