South Korean authorities are seeking the extradition of the co-founder and former CEO of Terraform Labs, do kwon. The prosecutor overseeing the investigation believes his repatriation would better serve the victims of the TerraUSD (USTC) and LUNA token crashes, The Wall Street Journal reported.
South Korea is the place where most of the crimes Kwon is accused of occurred, according to Dan Sung-han, the leader of South Korean prosecutors investigating the crash of the two cryptocurrencies, which he erased. almost $40 billion from the Terra ecosystem.
โGiven the nature of this incident, we believe that investigating the case in South Korea would be the most efficient way to bring justiceโ to the investors, the prosecutor said in an interview with the newspaper.
Do Kwon, also a South Korean citizen, was arrested in montenegro in March and accused of falsifying documents. Since then, authorities in the United States and South Korea have made efforts to extradite the Terra co-founder. He is also wanted by the Singapore regulatory authorities.
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During a press conference after Kwon's arrest, Montenegrin Justice Minister Marko Kovaฤ said that a decision on his extradition it would be based on "various factors", including the severity of the criminal offense, as well as the location and time of the offence. Montenegro reportedly does not have an extradition treaty with Singapore or South Korea. However, it has a long-standing extradition agreement with the United States and has previously extradited US citizens.
In late April, South Korean officials accused Shin Hyun-seongalso co-founder of Terraform Labs, along with nine other people for the collapse of the Terra ecosystem on charges of fraud, breach of trust and embezzlement.
Prosecutors accused the people of making ill-gotten gains of nearly $350 million (460 billion Korean won), Korean daily KBS World reported. Kwon would face similar charges if he were extradited to his home country, Sung-han told the Journal, with a prison sentence of up to 40 years.
Terra was one of the first crypto companies to popularize the concept of algorithmic stablecoins. The ecosystem collapsed when its native stablecoin TerraClassicUSD de-pegged from the US dollar in May 2022, sparking a snowball crisis in the crypto industry last year.
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