A 31-year-old British citizen, Christopher Emms, was arrested by Interpol in Moscow on February 21. The US government claims that Emms and two associates assisted the North Korean government in evading US sanctions.
According to local media, Emms was held in the hostel where he was staying, following the "red alert" issued by Interpol. The 31-year-old suspect traveled to Russia, assuming that Moscow would not extradite him to the US under NWO and sanctions conditions.
British National Helpend North Korea with Blockchain
CoinTelegraph reports that Emms and Spanish national Alejandro Cao De Benos allegedly counseled North Korea to launder money and dodge sanctions using blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. The 2019 Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference was organized and arranged by the two.
Virgil Griffith, a former Ethereum developer detained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in November 2019 and pleaded guilty and received a sentence of 63 months in prison, is the third member of the conspirators.
For one count of conspiring to breach the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Emms could spend up to 20 years in jail.
US-Imposed North Korean Sanctions
Chainalysis estimates that North Korea-affiliated groups stole over $1 billion in cryptocurrency from cryptocurrency industry organizations in 2022, primarily via open-source coded DeFi protocols. This is an increase from $400 million in 2021 and accounts for a third of all recent cyber incursion losses in the bitcoin industry.
Blender, a centralized cryptocurrency mixer, was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in May 2022 owing to its use by North Korean threat actors.
Next, Tornado Cash was blacklisted for the same reasons in August 2022, but due to its decentralized design, it has maintained its operations. It cannot be segregated from the financial system in the same manner as a traditional corporation.
Is Emms' arrest legal?
As per CoinTelegraph, Saudi Arabia rejected the United States extradition request for lack of a legal basis in September 2022 and released Emms following an eight-month travel ban.
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He left Saudi Arabia immediately and escaped to Russia. Yet, despite being a target of the DoJ's efforts to apply financial sanctions in the crypto sector and amid brewing Russo-US tensions, local officials decided to assist their American counterparts.
Legal rights advocate Radha Stirling, the CEO of Due Process International, a non-government organization that defends human rights against foreign enforcement authorities, earlier noted that there was insufficient evidence against Emms. Stirling maintained that Emms had not given North Korea any material that anyone could not access on the first page of Google.
Internet access is generally prohibited in North Korea as a condition of the country's authoritarian regime. Only a few high-ranking officials are permitted access to the Internet. In the majority of universities, a modest number of computers that are tightly controlled are offered.
This case is the most recent instance of increased scrutiny by international law enforcement agencies for using blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies to circumvent financial penalties.
In the United States, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has recently proposed new rules that would compel cryptocurrency exchanges to collect personal information from consumers who make transactions of more than $10,000.
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