Virgil Griffith was charged with plotting to break a federal law preventing citizens of the US from selling technology to the communist regime by traveling to North Korea to give a presentation on how to utilize blockchain technology to launder money and avoid sanctions.

At the commencement of his trial in the Southern District of New York, Ethereum researcher Virgil Griffith pleaded guilty. He built WikiScanner, a Wikipedia indexing tool, and co-designed the Tor2web proxy. 

On Monday, Griffith recorded his supplication in federal court in Manhattan, similarly as jury determination for his preliminary was to start. Subsequent to going to a meeting in Pyongyang prior in the year, the previous senior analyst for the Ethereum Foundation was captured in November 2019.

As a senior research scientist at the Ethereum Foundation, he supervised special projects for the platform at one point. 

During that conference held in North Korea, he allegedly “provided highly technical information” that he knew “might be utilized to help North Korea launder money and avoid sanctions,” according to the US Attorney’s office.  

According to a press release by the Department of Justice, the event was a “Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference” in April 2019. 

Griffith was released on bail last year, but he was arrested this year after attempting to use his Coinbase account to pay his attorneys. 

“As he admitted in court today, Virgil Griffith agreed to help one of our nation’s most dangerous foreign adversaries, North Korea. Griffith worked with others to provide cryptocurrency services to North Korea and assist North Korea in evading sanctions, and traveled to North Korea to do so,” Audrey Strauss, the United States Attorney, stated in a statement.

He goes on to say that Griffith compromised the United States’ national security by undermining the sanctions set by Congress and the President to put maximum pressure on North Korea’s deceitful dictatorship.

Pavan A

CBW - External Analyst

INDIA