US crypto guru who helped North Korea evade sanctions gets reduced sentence | NK News
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September 17, 2026Sep 17, 2026

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US crypto guru who helped North Korea evade sanctions gets reduced sentence

Virgil Griffith set for early release after court trims prison time by seven months under new sentencing guidelines

A U.S. cryptocurrency guru convicted of helping North Korea evade sanctions is set to be released early after a court partially reduced his five-year prison sentence, court documents show.

Virgil Griffith was sentenced to 63 months in prison in 2022 and was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions against North Korea. The charges stemmed from a lecture he gave at a 2019 cryptocurrency conference in Pyongyang. 

But Griffith filed an appeal in Aprilto have his sentence reduced, and on Tuesday, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District