Irrelevant to the OP unless you explain why North Koreans would be prevented from obtaining these licenses: it's not like there aren't competent developers in North Korea.
If your explanation is that the license grantor will verify that the applicant is a resident of a Western country, than the employer can just do the same verification of job applicants, dispensing with the need for the occupational license.
Even an in person ID check would suffice.
For most of the West, this is an extremely difficult bar to clear for a North Korean national working out of China.
Yeah, I was thinking that if you were looking for an industry license it would probably be more useful if it also covered skills or work experience in some way since that helps multiple weak points of the common hiring processes but you’re quite right that it would raise the bad considerably if they had to basically run everyone like actual spies with robust fake identities.
I recommend researching what comprises professional licensing. If you have absolutely no frame of reference I can understand why you would be so confused.
The way these people are being caught are things like dodgy LinkedIn profiles or refusing in person meetings so I would think a licensing process designed around things which would be expensive to fake: in person government ID checks, periodic exams, peer evaluations, etc. The trick would be actually doing that in person, which could be a useful thing for conferences - treat an afternoon at PyCon or re:Invent as the cost of renewing your professional credentials if you don’t live near a major city or university.