A British individual (Christopher Emms) was held by the Interpol office in Moscow after being accused by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) of planning to break US sanctions on North Korea.
Christopher Emms was detained in Moscow on February 21 after receiving a “red alert” from Interpol, according to local media. The hostel where the 31-year-old British national was residing was holding him.
Emms is said to have instructed North Korea on how to utilize blockchain and cryptocurrencies to launder money and dodge sanctions in April 2022 with Spanish citizen Alejandro Cao De Benos. The 2019 Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference was organized and arranged by the two. Former Ethereum engineer Virgil Griffith is the third member of the plot.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation detained him in November 2019, he pled guilty and was given a 63-month jail term. On one count of conspiring to break the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Emms may spend up to 20 years in jail.
Formerly, according to Radha Stirling, the founder of Due Process International, a voluntary organization that supports the defense of human rights in front of foreign enforcement bodies:
“Precisely because he did nothing wrong; he provided no information to North Korea that doesn’t already appear on the first page of Google.”
After an eight-month travel restriction, Saudi Arabia freed Emms in September 2022 after rejecting the US request for extradition due to a lack of legal justification.
He instantly abandoned the nation for Russia. The local authorities chose to support their American colleagues despite the fact that their nation was a target of the DoJ’s attempts to impose financial penalties on the cryptocurrency industry.
