FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
With Virgil Griffith Released, Advocates Call on Trump’s Pro-Crypto Administration to Drop IEEPA Case Against British National Chris Emms
10 April 2025 - The recent release of former Ethereum Foundation developer Virgil Griffith marks a turning point in the U.S. government’s high-profile attempt to criminalise blockchain dialogue with North Korea. Griffith, a U.S. citizen, served approximately three years of a 63-month sentence before being freed earlier this month.
Yet despite this development, British citizen Chris Emms remains effectively exiled under an Interpol Red Notice, still facing charges under the same legal theory, despite never being a U.S. person, having no ties to the United States, and playing no role involving U.S. entities or jurisdiction.
Chris stands accused of conspiring under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a statute explicitly designed to apply to U.S. persons. As a non-U.S. citizen, Emms never resided in the U.S., conducted no business with U.S. entities, and is being targeted solely for participating in a cryptocurrency conference in Pyongyang in 2019, an event that also featured public talks widely available online.
The prosecution of Chris Emms under IEEPA is legally tenuous and politically motivated. The SDNY even attempted to prosecute another foreign citizen who merely attended the same conference, a striking example of jurisdictional overreach. In 2022, Saudi Arabia denied a U.S. extradition request, citing a lack of dual criminality, and released Chris after eight months in custody. Since then, he has remained in limbo, with his travel restricted and his life indefinitely stalled.
With the advent of a new Trump administration that has pledged to embrace cryptocurrency innovation, advocates are now urging the U.S. government to review and dismiss the Emms case. “If the U.S. is serious about supporting crypto and restoring the rule of law,” one supporter said, “it must recognise that Chris Emms is not a criminal, he’s a casualty of prosecutorial overreach.”
Radha Stirling of Due Process International has already submitted formal appeals to senior Trump advisers Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, urging them to intervene and correct this clear miscarriage of justice.
“I’ve lost years of my life over an accusation that has no legal basis,” said Chris Emms. “I’m not an American. I broke no British laws. It’s time for this nightmare to end.”
Emms reiterated, “I’m not an American, and I’m not a U.S. person. I broke no British or international laws. It’s time for this nightmare to end. I attended a crypto conference because it was legal to do so and because the Trump administration was building bridges with the nation at the time. It wasn’t taboo to do so and I was advised by my own government that it was perfectly legal.”
Virgil Griffith has served his time. Chris Emms was never America’s to prosecute in the first place.
Stirling added, “Crypto entrepreneurs and technology creators have been targeted by the callus SDNY with many young innovators intimidated into guilty pleas, even when they’re innocent. We hope for major change under the new FBI and DOJ whom we have approached to review this case”.
It’s time to end this farce.
