Montenegro will not hand over Terra crypto co-founder Kwon to S. Korea

Reportedly the Montenegro authorities are planning to send Do Kwon directly to the US for the crypto fraud investigation.

Do Kwon is a co-founder of Terraform Labs which is responsible for the launch of Terra (Luna) crypto & TerraUSD stablecoin (UST). UST & Luna collapsed badly in May 2022. Kwon claimed many times that there was nothing suspicious related to the whole Terra blockchain model but many investigations found Kwon guilty in suspicious financial activities. 

In early of this year, Kwon was arrested by the Montenegro police with forged passport & identity cards. For travelling in Montenegro with forged documents, he spent some months behind the bars and now he completed his punishment. 

On 7 Dec 2023, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that top Montenegro justice officials planned to send Kwon to the United States (US) directly, instead of his native country South Korea.

WSJ: Montenegro’s top justice official has privately said he plans to send disgraced Terra founder Do Kwon to the U.S. rather than South Korea to face criminal charges, people familiar with the matter said.

A Montenegro court last month approved Kwon’s extradition, but left it…

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) December 7, 2023

It means the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other enforcement agencies will start their investigation against Kwon soon to find the main culprit behind the whole Terra crypto fraud. 

In the initial investigation, the SEC agency found that there was no automatic protocol between TerraUSD stablecoin & Luna coin, instead, there was a company which was manually manipulating the trade price of both the crypto tokens and in return company was getting Luna coin at a very high discounted price. 

The SEC body also alleged that Luna & UST was unregistered securities and Kwon promoted his Crypto products in the US without any registration. 

Today we charged Singapore-based Terraform Labs PTE Ltd and Do Hyeong Kwon with orchestrating a multi-billion-dollar crypto asset securities fraud involving an algorithmic stablecoin and other crypto asset securities.

— U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (@SECGov) February 16, 2023

It is worth noting that the Korean authorities are also eagerly waiting for the extradition of Kwon from Montenegro to South Korea. According to some reports, Korean laws are very strict and it would be better to investigate the case in South Korea, where Terraform Labs firm is situated. 

Some experts claimed that Kwon would face jail punishment for up to 100 years if found guilty in the charges of the Terra crypto billions dollar scam.

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