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Spaniard accused of helping North Korea evade US sanctions arrested

Spanish police on Friday said they had arrested a man wanted by Washington for allegedly conspiring with cryptocurrency experts to help North Korea evade US sanctions over its nuclear programme.

Spaniard accused of helping North Korea evade US sanctions arrested
Special delegate for North Korea's Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, Alejandro Cao de Benos poses in his bar "Pyongyangcafe". Photo: JOSEP LAGO/AFP.

Alejandro Cao de Benos, the founder of a pro-Pyongyang affinity organisation who bills himself as a “special delegate” for the government of North Korea, was arrested on Thursday at Madrid’s Atocha train station as he arrived from Barcelona, a police spokesman told AFP.

The 48-year-old Spaniard faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted, Spanish police said in a statement. His extradition to the United States must be approved by the Spanish government and courts, a process that can take months.

US federal prosecutors last year charged Cao de Benos and a British businessman, Christopher Emms, of conspiring to violate and evade US sanctions.

They accuse the two of arranging for American expert Virgil Griffith to travel to North Korea in April 2019 to attend the Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference which they organised.

At the event Griffith allegedly taught members of the secretive nation’s government how to use cutting-edge blockchain and cryptocurrency technology to launder money and circumvent sanctions.

Griffith, who holds a doctorate from the California Institute of Technology, was sentenced in April 2022 to 63 months in jail and fined $100,000, after pleading guilty to a conspiracy charge. Emms is still at large according to his description on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

The United States prohibits the export of goods, services or technology to North Korea without special permission from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Cao de Benos, a descendant of Spanish aristocrats, appeared before a High Court judge who released him without conditions while the extradition process runs its course.

In a message posted on X, formerly Twitter, he thanked police for their “good treatment and personal support”.

“There will be no extradition. The US accusation, besides being false, does not exist in Spain,” he added.

Cao de Benos founded the Korean Friendship Association in 2000, a club that is officially recognised by Pyongyang and claims on its website to have more than 10,000 members around the world.

The former IT consultant has also coordinated visits by foreign journalists to North Korea and has acted as a middleman between the country’s reclusive communist regime and foreign investors.

In 2016 he opened a small North Korean-themed bar, the Pyongyang Cafe, in his hometown of Tarragona on Spain’s Mediterranean coast.

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CRIME

Top Spanish court rules kiss without consent is sexual assault

Spain's Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that a kiss without "tacit consent" can be considered sexual assault, just months before former football federation chief Luis Rubiales will stand trial over his unsolicited kiss at the Women's World Cup.

Top Spanish court rules kiss without consent is sexual assault

The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling from the southern region of Andalusia which convicted a police officer of sexual assault and sentenced him to one year and nine months in jail for kissing a woman on the cheek who was in police custody.

“A ‘stolen kiss’, and thus without express or implied consent, constitutes sexual assault in actuality,” the court said, adding that “it is clear that the fleeting contact of a non-consensual kiss represents a bodily invasion”.

“A ‘no’ from the victim is not necessary in the face of attempts to kiss a woman, but rather that for there not to be a crime, what is needed is consent. The key is consent, to the point that if consent has not been given, there has been sexual aggression.”

The issue of whether an unsolicited kiss can be considered sexual assault is a hot topic in Spain since Rubiales provoked worldwide outrage by kissing star player Jenni Hermoso on the lips during the medal ceremony after Spain beat England to win the World Cup in Australia last year.

At the time, Rubiales, 46, brushed it off as “a consensual” peck on the lips, but Hermoso, 34, said it was not.

She filed a lawsuit against Rubiales in September, telling the judge she had come under pressure to defend him both on the flight back from Australia and on a subsequent team holiday to Ibiza in the Balearic Islands.

Rubiales is set to stand trial from February 3 to 19 over the kiss. Public prosecutors have requested a sentence of two-and-a-half years in prison for Rubiales – one year for sexual assault and 18 months for coercion.

The former federation chief, who quit his post last year in the wake of the controversy, told private Spanish television station La Sexta in April that he could not understand how it could be labelled as sexual assault, saying there was “no sexual context” to it.

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