South Korean authorities headed to Serbia to find Do Kwon, the co-founder of Singapore-based Terraform Labs, which owns crashed stablecoin TerraUSD.
Last week, South Korean authorities travelled to Serbia to ask for assistance finding Do Kwon, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. A top Justice Ministry official joined the trip, according to Seoul’s prosecutor’s office.
South Korean prosecutors asked Serbian police to extradite Do Kwon in early December, claiming he was “in hiding” there. After leaving South Korea for Singapore around the accident, authorities alleged he travelled to Serbia through Dubai in September.
Kwon’s South Korean passport has been cancelled, preventing him from traveling overseas. He and several Terraform executives have arrest warrants, and Interpol has issued a Red Notice for international police to arrest Kwon.
Kwon denies fraud and Capital Markets Act violations, calling them “politically motivated.” He has not verified or disputed living in Serbia.
Because Serbia has never signed an extradition treaty with South Korea, some experts believed Kwon could hide there. Experts say South Korean prosecutors may be in trouble without this.
Serbia must issue a mutually beneficial extradition order for South Korean prosecutors to arrest. “Serbia is still an unprecedented nation in this regard,” said Korea Criminal Justice Policy Institute researcher Seung Jae-Hyeon last December.
Terraform Labs, which owns TerraUSD and Luna, is led by Kwon. Luna, a sister token, was used to maintain a $1 value for TerraUSD.
After crypto market sell-offs in May 2018, the algorithmic stablecoin lost its dollar peg. Terraform Labs partly repaired the peg by acquiring $2B UST, but the sell-off depleted those funds, hyperinflated UST’s sister token LUNA, and collapsed both LUNA and UST.
Millions of investors who invested their life savings in Terra lost $40 billion when the ecosystem crashed.
Compiled by Coinbold
