This file photo taken June 16, 2023, and provided by the Montenegro-based daily newspaper Vijesti shows disgraced South Korean crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon heading to the district court in Podgorica, the capital city of Montenegro, to attend his trial on charges of using a fake passport. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
WASHINGTON/ROME, Mar. 20 (Korea Bizwire) — An appeals court in the Balkan country of Montenegro finalized a decision Wednesday to have Do Kwon, the co-founder of the cryptocurrency firm Terraform Labs, be extradited to his home country, South Korea.
In a statement on its website, the court said that it had rejected an appeal by Kwon’s legal representatives and upheld an earlier decision by the country’s High Court to hand over Kwon to South Korea rather than to the United States.
South Korean prosecutors have sought the extradition of Kwon on a set of allegations related to the crash of Terraform Labs’ TerraUSD and Luna coins in May 2022. The crash was estimated to have wiped out nearly 50 trillion won (US$37 billion) in market value.
Kwon has also been wanted by the U.S., where he was charged with fraud by federal prosecutors in New York.
According to Bloomberg, Kwon’s extradition could take place as early as this weekend when his prison sentence in Montenegro for using forged documents expires.
He was captured at an airport in Montenegro in March last year when he was reportedly trying to board a plane bound for the United Arab Emirates on a forged passport. He had been on the loose after fleeing Korea amid a probe in connection with the crypto debacle.
TerraUSD was designed as a stablecoin, pegged to stable assets like the U.S. dollar. However, holders of TerraUSD and Luna lost most of their assets after the stablecoin plunged far below its $1 peg.
(Yonhap)
