British Citizens Arrested In Moscow On Accusations Of Violation Of US Sanctions Against North Korea

Christopher Embuts was arrested in Moscow on a "red notice" from Interpol. (photo: twitter @DecVentures)

JAKARTA - The Interpol Moscow Bureau has arrested a British citizen charged by the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) on charges of conspiracy to violate US sanctions against North Korea.

According to local media, on February 21, Christopher Emms was arrested in Moscow on a "red notice" from Interpol. The 31-year-old man was detained at the hostel where he was staying.

In April 2022, along with Spanish citizen Alejandro Cao De Benos, Embes allegedly gave North Korea instructions on how to use blockchain and cryptocurrencies to launder money and avoid sanctions. The two men planned and organized the 2019 Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conferences.

The third participant in the conspiracy is Virgil Griffith, an Ethereum developer. He was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in November 2019. He pleaded guilty, and sentenced to 63 months in prison.

Embess can face up to 20 years in prison for a single charge of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Power Act. Radha Stirling, founder of Due Process International, a non-governmental organization that helps defend human rights in the face of international law enforcement agencies, previously claimed that there was no strong evidence against embess.

"Because he did nothing wrong; he did not provide information to North Korea that had not appeared on Google's first page," Stirling said, quoted by Cointelegraph.

In September 2022, Saudi Arabia rejected a request for American extradition for a lack of legal basis and released herms after an eight-month travel ban. She immediately left the country and fled to Russia. However, even though the country was the target of DoJ's efforts to enforce financial sanctions in the crypto sector, local officials decided to help their American counterparts.