Jack Laurence

He'd requested permission to travel to North Korea for this conference.

This request had been denied.

Now looking at the US Department of State website, it says that all US passports are invalid for travel to, in or through the DPRK, unless specially validated for such travel under the authority of the Secretary of State.

Special validations are granted only in very limited circumstances.

from court documents in the case against Virgil.

They state that in January of 2019, he applied to the State Department for permission to travel to the DPRK, informing them that he would be speaking at a cryptocurrency conference about, and they quote, the applications of blockchain technology to businesses and anti-corruption.

They then go on to state that Griffith was determined to attend despite the denial and sought the approval of the DPRK-UN mission in Manhattan.

He sent the mission, copies of his CV, passport and explained his desire to attend the conference.

He was granted a visa a month later.

Unaware of all of this information, Chris and the rest of the group, along with Virgil, were off to North Korea.

We jumped on the plane to Pyongyang.

We arrived in Pyongyang.

Now, it's a really weird place, Jack.

You get to the airport in Pyongyang.

It's a brand new airport, right?

It looks beautiful, right?

But there's no one there.

So it's exactly like you've seen in all the documentaries, right?

It's like the whole thing's a play and there's actors just walking around playing the parts of normal citizens.

So it very much feels like that.