A Manhattan judge sentenced Virgil Griffith to 63 months in prison for his presentation at the Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference in 2019.
Judge Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York also fined Griffith $100,000 for teaching North Korea how to use cryptocurrencies.
Arrested in November 2019, Griffith pleaded guilty last September after an ongoing trial over whether his work in North Korea was a violation of sanctions. In a statement following his arrest, Deputy Attorney General John Demers said:
“Despite warnings from Griffith not to go, he went to North Korea, one of the biggest enemies of the United States, where to avoid sanctions on his audience. taught how to use blockchain”
Long excluded from the global economy, North Korea was among the early adopters of crypto for geopolitical reasons. The country’s local hacker group, Lazarus Group, has carried out some of the most daring hacks in crypto history as a way to fund the North Korean regime.
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