Crypto insider stuck in Saudi Arabia during North Korea conference

Cryptocurrency insider Christopher Emms, who presented at North Korea’s infamous “blockchain conference,” is fighting what he calls his wrongful detention in Saudi Arabia for the past six months at the hands of the U.S. government.

In February, Emms was arrested at Riyadh’s airport following an Interpol red notice issued by the United States.

Emms, a 30-year-old British national who had been living and working for Roger Ver’s Bitcoin.com outside Dubai, had been invited to the capital by the Saudi government to attend the One Giant Leap technology conference. He was arrested on his way back to the United Arab Emirates.

The feds allege that Emms violated sanctions against North Korea when he traveled to the country in 2019 with US citizen Virgil Griffith – the Ethereum programmer who was recently sentenced to five years in prison for presenting at the same conference.

US authorities had 45 days from Emms’ arrest to provide evidence of his alleged crimes – applicable only to US citizens, which Emms is not – to support his extradition.

Nothing has been filed some 150 days later, and Emms was stranded after posting bail after a one-day stint in a Saudi jail.

In a video interview with Blockworks, Emms said he is now forced to hop between hotels at his own expense, as he is ineligible for residency. The US froze his bank accounts and crypto exchange accounts.

“I literally borrow money from friends and family just to pay the bills; it’s hard,” Emms said. “The British Embassy has made it clear that they do not wish to assist in any meaningful way.”

Christopher Emms denies being Pyongyang’s blockchain mastermind

According to the FBI, which has Emms on its Most Wanted list, Emms planned and organized Pyongyang’s one-day blockchain conference, allegedly recruited an American crypto expert to join him, and arranged his travel to North Korea in violation of US sanctions .

While the crypto expert Emms allegedly recruited was not named, the FBI appears to be referring to Griffith. The feds say Emms answered specific questions about blockchain technology and even proposed plans for smart contracts to serve Pyongyang’s interests, charting crypto transactions designed to avoid U.S. sanctions.

US authorities, along with the United Nations, have suggested that Pyongyang finances its nuclear missile programs using Bitcoin-powered ransomware attacks and thefts of cryptocurrency exchanges, which have totaled more than $1.3 billion.

Emms said he had accepted an invitation to speak at North Korea’s blockchain conference extended via LinkedIn by Alejandro Cao de Benós, the Spanish political activist and self-appointed special delegate of North Korea’s Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Cao de Benós is named in an indictment together with Emms.

Emms said he had never met or spoken to Griffith before the trip, which came as the crypto market had floundered for nearly a year after bitcoin’s first surge to $20,000. He was there for about eight days, and the conference came after a tour across the country. They visited a new airport, schools, museums, a video arcade – all empty – as well as the peninsula’s demilitarized zone.

Eventually, Emms and the rest of the conference invitees—about eight—were taken to a conference room with about 20 people, who mostly seemed disinterested, with virtually no preparation among the delegates.

Emms and the others had their passports confiscated and were warned that the event “better go well”.

“We got a bunch of crap, a paper that was copied and pasted from Google that was given to us by Cao de Benós with different titles,” Emms told Blockworks. “So, we’re all kind of in the room, and we’re like, ‘OK, who’s going to talk about what?’ We pass these pieces of paper to each other and think, ‘How are we going to deal with this?'”

One of the topics given by Cao de Benós, Emms said, was “blockchain and peace.” Another was “blockchain and technology”, leaving delegates to ad-lib much of their presentations.

British MP says US misused Interpol’s Red Notice system

It is unclear why the US has not complied with Saudi authorities to move Emms’ case forward. Radha Stirling, an extradition expert and lawyer working in support of Emms, told Blockworks that she hopes the Saudi government will close the case so he can return to the UK.

“I think the United States is testing where it can export its domestic policy abroad, whether it will be successful in requesting the extradition of a foreign national from a foreign jurisdiction,” Stirling said.

“Obviously, they knew [Emms] was in Saudi [Arabia] and thought, this is a jurisdiction that is going to give him maximum pain,” he added. “They were hoping that he would give in to the pressure and surrender voluntarily, maybe enter a plea and name other people that they are also targeting.”

The United States could seek extradition from Britain if he returns, which Emms expects will happen if he were to return home. But, he said, the British government – including intelligence services – interviewed him extensively and told him they did not believe he had done anything wrong.

This gave Emms the confidence to travel to Saudi Arabia for the One Giant Leap conference, after which he was arrested.

Crispin Blunt, a long-serving member of the British Parliament who has urged the country’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Saudi ambassador to take action, echoed Stirling’s stance.

“Emms is a victim of an exercise in American extraterritoriality,” Blunt told Blockworks. “Firstly, Chris has not, as far as I am aware, broken any UK international or Saudi laws. The Americans are misusing the Red Notice system under Interpol – jurisdictional shopping to make life as bloody as possible for people they identify as their adversaries.”

“All of us would have some anxiety about someone idiotic enough to attend a conference in Pyongyang,” Blunt added. “However, on examination, it appears that Emms has been an idiot, not a crook. Being an idiot is not a crime.”

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