North Korea has been hit with sanctions, and Virgil Griffith, an ex-Ethereum developer, has been given five years and three months in prison and a $100,000 fine for his involvement.
"North Korea poses a national security threat to our nation, and the regime has shown time and time again that it will stop at nothing to disregard our laws for its own benefit," U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.
Six months after pleading guilty to violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) by providing technical advice to the hermit kingdom regarding the use of digital currency to bypass economic restrictions, Griffith was sentenced. In November 2019, Griffith was arrested.
Cryptocurrency heists have long been used by North Korea to avoid international sanctions and fund its weapons of mass destruction programs. This was confirmed by an estimate of $400 million in digital assets that the Lazarus Group took from crypto platforms in 2021 alone.
It is only in North Korea that intelligence agencies operate that steal both information and money for their country, according to an August 2020 report by Israeli cybersecurity firm ClearSky.
As far back as 2018, it's been reported that Griffith had ideas about how to use blockchain and smart contracts to launder money in North Korea, including developing and funding cryptocurrency infrastructure like crypto mining.
An American citizen living in Singapore, the defendant, age 39, made proposals to facilitate the exchange of digital currency between North and South Korea and recruited other Americans to provide similar services to citizens of the country in general and the people of North Korea in particular.
According to the Justice Department's ruling, these actions were carried out despite OFAC (the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control) having denied permission.
Griffith admitted in court that he took steps to evade sanctions, which are in place to prevent the DPRK from developing a nuclear weapon," said Williams. As a result of the sentence handed down today, "justice has been served."
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