South Korean cryptocurrency entrepreneur Do Kwon will be extradited from Montenegro to the United States over the collapse of two digital tokens: TerraUSD and Luna tokens.
The United States and South Korea have lost around $40bn (£31.7bn) from investors and claimed that the company behind the token, which rocked the global crypto market, collapsed due to fraud, and Kwon’s He asked for extradition.
The issue had to be fought in court because Montenegro does not have extradition treaties with the United States or South Korea.
The decision ends more than 18 months of judgments and reversals.
“Minister of Justice Bojan Bozovic has decided to approve the extradition of Kwon Do-hyun to the United States,” the Ministry of Justice said in a statement.
“We have concluded that the majority of the criteria established by law favor an extradition request from the competent authorities of the United States,” the statement said.
It added that Kwon has agreed to be extradited to both South Korea and the United States.
In February, U.S. regulators accused Kwon and his company Terraform Labs of “orchestrating a multibillion-dollar crypto securities fraud.”
“We are confident that Terraform and Do Kwon will provide the public with the full, fair and truthful disclosure required of many crypto securities, particularly Luna and TerraUSD,” said Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler. I claim that I couldn’t do it.” said in a statement at the time.
The US claimed that Kwon misled investors about the stability of TerraUSD by repeatedly claiming that the token would increase in value.
Despite billions of dollars of investment, TerraUSD and Luna fell into a death spiral in May 2022.
This caused a decline in other major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin.
In September 2022, Interpol issued a “red notice” warrant for Kwon’s arrest. He was in Singapore before his business collapsed and fled to Serbia before being picked up in Montenegro.
Kwon was arrested in March 2023 at Montenegro’s capital Podgorica airport as he was about to board a flight to Dubai.
In June 2023, he was found guilty of falsifying official documents in Montenegro and sentenced to four months in prison.
Hong Chang-jun, the former finance director of Terraform Labs, was extradited to South Korea in February after being sentenced to four months in prison in Montenegro on fraud charges.
