Griffith talked about using cryptocurrency technologies to evade penalties, violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The federal prosecutors accused him of putting US diplomacy at risk by weakening the economic sanctions against hostile foreign powers.
American cryptocurrency expert Virgil Griffith will go to prison for 63 months for a presentation he made in North Korea. He talked about how people could use blockchain technology to evade the sanctions imposed by the US.
Griffith, also known as Romanpoet, was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the United States, in 1983. The programmer is the creator of WikiScanner, an indexing tool for the multilingual online free-content encyclopedia Wikipedia.
In early 2019, US authorities did not grant Virgil Griffith permission to travel to North Korea. However, he visited Pyongyang, the capital, to talk about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
While he was in the Asian country, he discussed using cryptocurrency technologies to evade sanctions and launder money. FBI special agents consider that a violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
What Griffith Did after the Discussions about Cryptocurrencies
After talking in North Korea, Griffith went to the US embassy in Singapore to tell them all about the experience. According to his lawyers, he also decided to meet with the FBI in Puerto Rico and San Francisco.
However, the federal police arrested him at Los Angeles International Airport on Thanksgiving Day 2019. He was boarding a flight to Baltimore, where he planned to spend his vacation with his parents and sister.
Some months later, the authorities indicted him for violating the presidential executive orders to block North Korea.
Curiously, Vitalik Buterin spoke out against the prosecution of Griffith several times but acknowledged that going to Pyongyang was a bad idea.
The Former Ethereum Developer Gets a Five-Year Prison Sentence
In September 2021, Virgil Griffith pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. That law bans US citizens from exporting goods, services, or technology to sanctioned countries such as North Korea.
Griffith stated that many people warned him about not going to North Korea and acknowledged that it was a terrible idea.
The federal prosecutors accused the former Ethereum developer of putting US diplomacy at risk. In addition, he weakened the economic sanctions intended to put pressure on a hostile foreign power.
A picture of Griffith wearing a dark olive green North Korean military outfit seemed to outrage the judge. He was standing next to a whiteboard where he had drawn a happy face and written the words no sanctions.
The judge commented that the photo showed a deliberate and voluntary intention to violate the sanctions regime. The crime grew worse since Griffith sought to educate Korean people on how to circumvent penalties.
For those reasons, the federal court of New York, alongside federal judge Kevin Castel, gave Virgil Griffith a 63-month prison sentence. They also imposed a USD 100,000 fine on him, thus ending an FBI investigation.
Virgil Griffith expressed that he learned his lesson and said that he is deeply ashamed of being of what he did.
By Alexander Salazar
