{"id":21365,"date":"2019-12-31T09:45:12","date_gmt":"2019-12-31T08:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/?p=21365"},"modified":"2019-12-31T09:45:12","modified_gmt":"2019-12-31T08:45:12","slug":"ethereum-eth-ethereum-developer-accused-of-helping-north-korea-avoid-us-sanctions-to-be-released-on-1m-bail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crypto-economy.com\/ethereum-eth-ethereum-developer-accused-of-helping-north-korea-avoid-us-sanctions-to-be-released-on-1m-bail\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethereum [ETH] \u2013 Ethereum Developer Accused of Helping North Korea Avoid US Sanctions to be Released on $1M Bail"},"content":{"rendered":"
Embattled Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith<\/a><\/strong> has had a lucky break after his attorney successfully convinced the U.S. District Court Judge Vernon Broderick in New York that his client was not a flight risk and he deserved a bail.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In response, Judge Broderick granted the developer a bail of $1 million<\/strong> and ordered Griffith to be hosted by his parents in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.<\/p>\n The ruling was made on Monday, December 30th<\/sup> during a petition hearing for a determination that was made last week in which Griffith was denied bail, according to a series of Tweets<\/a> by Inner City Press, a public interest group.<\/p>\n Virgil Griffith is accused of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) by accepting to travel to North Korea for a cryptocurrency conference organized by the North Korean government.<\/p>\n At the conference, Griffith allegedly gave a highly technical talk in which he educated the conference attendees on how to set up money laundering businesses and evade US-imposed sanctions on the country using blockchain.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He was arrested by US law enforcement on Thanksgiving without bail. In last week\u2019s hearing<\/a>, the prosecutors alleged that Griffith had shown an interest in renouncing his US citizenship in favor of defecting to North Korea to establish a money laundering business.<\/p>\n The prosecutors proved that he had expressed these intentions to his parents in a series of text messages.<\/p>\n In the Monday hearing, Griffith\u2019s attorney Brian Klein argued that his client was not a flight risk citing that he was already suspended from his designation as a special projects developer at the Ethereum Foundation.<\/p>\n