A Moscow businessman is using an online recruitment platform to supply North Korean workers disguised as students to Russian factories, according to a rights group investigation released Thursday. The network circumvents international sanctions, placing laborers in grueling conditions to sustain Russia’s war economy while channeling millions to Pyongyang.
The Dutch nonprofit Global Rights Compliance published an investigative report on October 29 revealing how a network of brokers brings North Korean nationals into Russia on student visas to circumvent UN sanctions prohibiting their employment. The operation relies on digital recruitment channels and corporate structures directed by Moscow-based businessman Vladimir Sokolov, who leads the Black Horse group of companies and the online platform KNDR.su.
That website advertised teams of 50 to 100 workers to Russian industrial employers. The digital advertisements promised prospective clients that laborers would work 28 days a month, 12 hours a day
and assured employers that the personnel do not arrive late, do not drink alcohol, and do not fight.
Investigators Find Agencies Pocket Commissions for North Korean Workers
The investigation utilized open-source information, facial recognition technology to identify North Korean officials, and undercover inquiries where researchers posed as prospective employers. Investigators discovered that agencies arranging the labor supply pocket commissions ranging from 100,000 to 150,000 rubles per worker. Those figures translate up to $1,860 for each individual placed in a Russian facility, according to findings detailed by Reuters-backed coverage.
To keep workers tied to their assignments, the network exercises strict control over identification documents. Advertisements specified that the North Korean embassy retains control over workers’ passports. One advertisement explicitly assured prospective employers that the laborers would not run away, reflecting the coercive environment enforced through threats of retribution against the workers and their families back home.
Factory Placements Supporting Moscow’s Wartime Production
Undercover investigators posing as employers found that the recruited personnel were deployed to vital industrial sites, including a factory producing military food rations. Black Horse has claimed on its website that it supplies machinery ordered by the Russian Ministry of Defense while also exporting agricultural products to North Korea.
The European Union sanctioned Sokolov earlier in the month for promoting and facilitating commercial and industrial cooperation projects involving North Korea.
Russia uses North Korean workers disguised as students, report saysA Moscow businessman is supplying North Korean workers disguised as students to Russian companies through an online platform, according to a Global Rights Compliance report. The scheme is described as a…
This investigation exposes a dangerous convergence between two states’ military ambitions.
Prevost added that the scheme joins North Korea’s use of overseas forced labour to finance its weapons programme, and Russia’s growing reliance on labour to sustain its war economy,
according to reporting distributed through Marketscreener.
Financial Flows and Enforcement Gaps Since 2017
Independent research conducted by Global Rights Compliance in March documented severe exploitation at Russian construction sites, where workers faced shifts of up to 16 hours, passport confiscation, and surrendering up to 90 percent of their pay to the Pyongyang regime. The broader overseas labor operation is estimated to generate between $450 million and $800 million annually for the North Korean state.
This industrial pipeline operates in direct defiance of UN Security Council resolutions adopted in 2017 following North Korea’s sixth and final nuclear test. Those measures instituted a blanket ban on hiring North Korean workers abroad and mandated their complete repatriation by the end of 2019. South Korea’s intelligence agency notes that since 2024, Pyongyang has also dispatched more than 10,000 troops and munitions to assist Russian forces in Ukraine.
Emails seeking comment sent to Russia’s foreign ministry and the North Korean Embassy in Moscow went unanswered. Of the two primary Russian figures contacted by the rights group, only one replied to deny the allegations.