Crypto Insider Stuck in Saudi Arabia Over North Korean Conference

Christopher Emms traveled to North Korea alongside Virgil Griffith for a blockchain conference in 2019, drawing ire of the US

article-image

Source: Shutterstock

share

key takeaways

  • Emms has been in legal limbo in Saudi Arabia for the past five months, awaiting potential extradition to the US
  • UK parliament member Crispin Blunt is now petitioning the Foreign Office to intervene

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

In February, Emms was arrested in Riyadh’s airport following an Interpol Red Notice issued by the US. 

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

The Feds allege Emms breached sanctions on North Korea when he traveled to the country in 2019 alongside US citizen Virgil Griffith — the Ethereum programmer recently sentenced to five years’ prison for presenting at the same conference.

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

Nothing has been lodged some 150 days later, leaving Emms stranded after posting bail following a one-day stint in a Saudi jail.

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

“I’m literally borrowing funds from friends and family just to pay the bills; it’s difficult,” Emms said. “The British Embassy has made it clear that they don’t particularly want to help in any meaningful way.”

Christopher Emms denies being Pyongyang’s blockchain mastermind

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

While the crypto expert Emms allegedly recruited wasn’t named, it seems the FBI is referring to Griffith. Feds say Emms answered specific questions about blockchain technology and even proposed plans for smart contracts to serve Pyongyang’s interests, mapping out crypto transactions designed to evade US sanctions.

US authorities, alongside the United Nations, have suggested that Pyongyang funds its nuclear missile programs by Bitcoin-fueled ransomware attacks and cryptocurrency exchange thefts, the fruits of which have amounted to more than $1.3 billion.

christopher emms
Christopher Emms from his hotel in Saudi Arabia | Source: Blockworks

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-styled Special Delegate of North Korea’s Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Cao de Benós is named in an indictment alongside Emms.

Emms said he’d never met or spoken to Griffith until the trip, which occurred as the crypto market had floundered for almost a year following bitcoin’s first surge to $20,000. He was there for about eight days, and the conference occurred after a tour across the country. They visited a new airport, schools, museums, a video games 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 some 20 people, who mostly seemed uninterested, with practically no preparation amongst the delegates. 

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

“We were given a load of shit, a paper that had been copied and pasted off Google that was given to us by Cao de Benós with different titles,” Emms told Blockworks. “So, we’re all sort of in the room, and we’re like, ‘OK, who’s going to speak on what?’ We hand these pieces of paper to each other and think, ‘How are we going to deal with this?’”

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

UK parliament member says US abused Interpol’s Red Notice system

It’s unclear why the US hasn’t complied with Saudi authorities to move Emms’ case along. Radha Stirling, an extradition expert working in support of Emms, told Blockworks she’s hoping the Saudi government will close the case, allowing him to return to the UK.

“I think the US is testing where it can export its domestic policy abroad, whether they’ll 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’s going to give him maximum pain,” he added. “They were hoping that he would succumb to the pressure and surrender himself voluntarily, maybe enter a plea bargain and name names of other people who they’re also targeting.” 

The US could file for his extradition from the UK if he returns, something Emms expects to happen if he were to make it back to home soil. But, he said, the British government — including intelligence services — interviewed him extensively and told him they don’t think he’s done anything wrong. 

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

Loading Tweet..

Crispin Blunt, a long-serving member of UK parliament who has urged the nation’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Saudi ambassador to take action, echoed Stirling’s sentiment. 

“Emms is a victim of an exercise in American extraterritoriality,” Blunt told Blockworks. “First of all, Chris hasn’t broken, as far as I’m aware, any British international or Saudi laws. The Americans are using the Red Notice system under Interpol improperly — jurisdiction shopping in order to make life as bloody as possible for people they identify as their opponents.”

“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.”


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Featured.png

Research

Helium stands at a pivotal moment in its evolution as a decentralized wireless network, balancing rapid growth, economic restructuring, and global expansion. With accelerated growth in domestic DAUs and Hotspots supporting its network, Helium is leveraging strategic partnerships and innovative proposals to scale internationally. The recent implementation of HIP 138, “Return to HNT,” has unified its token economy under HNT, simplifying participation and strengthening liquidity, while HIP 139’s phase-out of CBRS refocuses efforts on scalable Wi-Fi offload. Meanwhile, governance shifts under HIP 141 raise questions about centralization as Nova Labs consolidates control over the roadmap.

article-image

In 2011, WikiLeaks faced a financial blockade imposed by the US government. It was Bitcoin’s first major test.

article-image

Kado’s founder Emery Andrew spoke to Blockworks about the acquisition and what’s next for the team

article-image

LayerZero’s Bryan Pellegrino chatted with Blockworks about the firm’s next steps and its 10-year runway

article-image

Colosseum co-founder Matty Taylor is seeing “high-performance [Solana] founders showing a lot of interest in private trading technology”

article-image

Executives weigh the growth potential they see in the public stock and private credit/equities arenas

article-image

Players can stake ME, trade tokens and link wallets to climb the leaderboard