A federal court in New York sentenced an American, accused of being a hacker and cryptocurrency expert, to more than five years in prison after he pleaded guilty to providing financial advice to North Korea to evade international sanctions. Virgil Griffith, 39, admitted to the charges in order to lessen his potential sentence, which could have reached 20 years.
U.S. Attorney for the Manhattan federal court, Damian Williams, stated that the court sentenced Griffith to 63 months in prison. He added, "North Korea undoubtedly poses a threat to our national security, and the regime in Pyongyang has repeatedly demonstrated that nothing stops it from violating our laws."
The statement quoted Griffith acknowledging before the court that he acted to help North Korea evade sanctions imposed to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons. Griffith was charged with working with others to provide North Korea with financial services in the cryptocurrency field and assisting the communist regime in evading international sanctions during his visit to North Korea for these purposes.
Griffith, an American computer expert who lived in Singapore, was arrested in November 2019 at Los Angeles International Airport after attending a conference in Pyongyang a few months earlier. North Korea, under strict international sanctions due to its nuclear and missile programs, is prohibited by United Nations Security Council resolutions from conducting ballistic missile tests. Despite these sanctions, Pyongyang has conducted about ten such tests since the beginning of the year.
