Japan has issued an advisory that North Korean IT workers are impersonating Japanese nationals to secure jobs, underscoring the role of these skilled professionals in funding Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile development.

By adopting Japanese identities, North Korea’s overseas IT professionals allegedly secured jobs with Japanese companies through an unnamed online platform, Tokyo’s foreign ministry, finance ministry, economy ministry and the National Policy Agency said in a joint alert on Tuesday.

These IT workers typically use false identification documents to conceal their identities and nationality, but some register their accounts by using relatives or acquaintances in Japan as proxies and offering