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Prosecutor indicates that extraditing Do Kwon to South Korea would be in the best interest of Terraform Labs’ victims: Report
South Korean officials are pursuing the extradition of Do Kwon, the co-founder and former CEO of Terraform Labs. The prosecutor in charge of the investigation asserts that his return would best benefit the victims affected by the collapses of the TerraUSD (USTC) and LUNA tokens, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
According to Dan Sung-han, the head of the South Korean prosecutors investigating the downfall of the two cryptocurrencies, the majority of the alleged crimes committed by Kwon occurred in South Korea, which saw nearly $40 billion wiped out from the Terra ecosystem.
“Considering the nature of this situation, we believe that conducting the investigation in South Korea would be the most effective means of delivering justice” to the investors, the prosecutor stated in an interview with the publication.
Do Kwon, who is also a citizen of South Korea, was apprehended in Montenegro in March and charged with document forgery. Since that time, both U.S. and South Korean authorities have been working to secure the extradition of the Terra co-founder. He is also sought by regulatory bodies in Singapore.
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Following Kwon’s arrest, Montenegrin Justice Minister Marko Kovač mentioned during a press conference that the decision regarding his extradition would depend on “several factors,” including the gravity of the criminal offense, as well as the time and place of the crime. Montenegro reportedly lacks an extradition treaty with both Singapore and South Korea. However, it does have an older extradition agreement with the United States and has previously extradited American nationals.
In late April, South Korean authorities indicted Shin Hyun-seong, another co-founder of Terraform Labs, along with nine other individuals for their roles in the collapse of the Terra ecosystem, facing charges of fraud, breach of trust, and embezzlement.
Prosecutors alleged that these individuals gained illicit profits amounting to nearly $350 million (460 billion Korean won), according to the Korean daily KBS World. Kwon would encounter similar charges if extradited to South Korea, with Sung-han informing the Journal that he could face a prison sentence of up to 40 years.
Terra was among the pioneering crypto companies that popularized the concept of algorithmic stablecoins. The ecosystem’s collapse occurred when its native stablecoin TerraClassicUSD lost its peg to the U.S. dollar in May 2022, initiating a cascading crisis within the crypto sector last year.
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