An American accused of being a hacker and cryptocurrency expert was sentenced Tuesday (April 12) in New York to more than five years in prison for providing North Korea with financial advice to help it escape international sanctions. Virgil Griffith, 39, pleaded “guilty” for the US federal prosecutor who has been prosecuting him since 2019, to reduce his sentence, which could have been 20 years in prison. Virgil Griffith was sentenced to 63 months in prison, according to a statement from the Manhattan District Attorney.
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For Prosecutor Damian Williams, “North Korea undoubtedly poses a threat to the national security of our country and the regime” (from Pyongyang) has shown time and again that nothing can stop him from breaking our laws”. Damian Williams says convict Virgil Griffith had already… Recognized in court for having acted to help North Korea escape sanctions in place to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
The US prosecutor accused Virgil Griffith of collaborating with others to provide North Korea with financial services in cryptocurrencies, helping the communist regime escape international sanctions, and visiting South Korea, the north, for these purposes. Virgil Griffith is an American computer scientist living in Singapore who was arrested at the Los Angeles airport in November 2019 after attending a conference in Pyongyang a few months earlier. He had, according to the US justice, his expertise in cryptocurrencies and virtual currencies and the way in which “avoid punishment” international organizations against the communist regime in Pyongyang.
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The US justice also accused him of having proposed “Programs to Facilitate Cryptocurrency Exchanges Between North Korea and South Korea”, in violation of international rules. UN resolutions prohibit North Korea, which has been hit by severe international sanctions for its nuclear and weapons programs, from conducting ballistic missile tests, which has not stopped Pyongyang from conducting about ten such tests since the beginning of the year. feed.
