‘NO EVIDENCE OF ENTRY’
A British government spokesman and a Security Council diplomat from another country, speaking on condition of anonymity, both said North Korea’s cyber program was used to collect information, evade sanctions and generate revenue. “Supporting the DPRK’s use of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, risks violating the Security Council’s resolutions because it would unavoidably increase the DPRK’s ability to subvert sanctions and generate revenue for its weapons programs,” the British spokesman said, citing North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The United States formally charged American digital currency expert Virgil Griffith last week after he attended the North Korean cryptocurrency conference last year. Prosecutors accuse him of providing services to North Korea without U.S. approval and evading U.S. laws. When Griffith - who has a doctorate from the California Institute of Technology - was arrested in November, prosecutors said he and other conference attendees had discussed how cryptocurrency technology could be used by Pyongyang to launder money and evade sanctions. “Although the press was not allowed to attend the conference and its proceedings were not published openly, the recent indictment of an American for sanctions violations sheds light on the intended purpose of the conference,” the U.N. sanctions experts wrote in the excerpt from the upcoming report. U.S. prosecutors said Griffith had been encouraging other U.S. citizens to attend next month’s conference in North Korea. The conference website specifically notes that Americans are welcome to apply to attend and that their passports would not be stamped “so there will be no evidence of your entry to the country.” Cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin and ether, are created through a computer process called mining, which requires powerful hardware. Once generated, they can be exchanged on anonymous online platforms for fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar, which in turn can help illicit activities like evading sanctions or laundering money. Blockchain technology is a digital ledger that forms the backbone of many cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
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