On New Year’s Eve, authorities in Montenegro announced that Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon had been extradited to the United States. The development comes after the Minister of Justice signed the extradition order, concluding the protracted battle between the United States and South Korea to bring the crypto businessman to trial.
Terraform Labs founder handed over to US authorities
On December 31, Montenegro extradited Do Kwon to the United States to face trial for his role in the 2022 collapse of Terraform Labs. reported According to The Korean Herald, the country’s Interior Ministry announced the end of the extended extradition saga in a statement on Tuesday morning.
According to the report, Do Kwon was “handed over to the competent law enforcement authorities of the United States of America and agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)” to face “criminal proceedings in the United States for crimes of conspiracy to commit fraud.” “
Last week, Montenegrin Justice Minister Bojan Božović rejected South Korea’s request and signed an order for Do Kwon’s extradition to the United States. Both countries sought his extradition for more than a year, resulting in a protracted legal saga to bring the once-influential crypto tycoon to trial.
As local news reported, “The Department of Justice considered all the facts and circumstances and evaluated the criteria” and concluded that the Terraform Labs co-founder should be extradited to the United States.
Taking into account the above, it was concluded that the majority of the criteria provided by law support the extradition request of the competent authorities of the United States of America, and the Minister of Justice has issued a decision allowing the extradition of Kwon Do Hyeong to the United States. United States of America, while rejecting extradition to the Republic of Korea.
Do Kwon’s Montenegrin lawyers reportedly criticized the Minister of Justice’s decision and announced that they would “appeal to the country’s constitutional court and to the European Court of Human Rights.”
Do Kwon’s Montenegro Saga
The South Korean businessman was in Montenegrin custody for more than a year and a half. In March 2023, authorities detained him along with former Terraform Lab finance official Han Chang-joon for attempting to use falsified travel documents at Podgorica airport.
Before his arrest, he had been on the run for months, fleeing his home country and Singapore before Terraform Labs went bankrupt. The company’s crash was one of the biggest crashes in cryptocurrency history, wiping out “around $50 billion in the network’s two asset offerings, TerraUSD (UST) and Luna (LUNA), in the span of one week,” the Federal Reserve Board detailed. on a paper.
Do Kwon was then sentenced to four months in prison in Montenegro, and later received two more months at the request of the United States and South Korea. After his release, he was accompanied to an immigration center to await the decision of the High Court of Montenegro on the extradition requests.
Terra Luna Classic (LUNC) is trading at $0.000111 in the one-week chart. Source: LUNCUSDT on TradingView
Featured image from Unsplash.com, chart from TradingView.com
