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The South Korean magnate Do Kwon, accused of fraud, criminal association, and other offenses, was handed over to FBI agents.
Montenegro extradited South Korean Do Kwon to the United States, nicknamed "the king of cryptocurrencies" and sought for fraud by both U.S. and South Korean justice, the police of the Balkan country reported on Tuesday (31.12.2024).
The Minister of Justice, Bojan Bozovic, signed today the extradition resolution of Do Kwon to the United States, where he is accused of fraud, criminal association, and other offenses.
Montenegrin authorities handed him over to FBI agents, according to the resolution of the Ministry of Justice of Montenegro, for the criminal proceedings to take place in the United States.
The extradition of Do Kwon, founder of Terraform Labs, was requested by both South Korea and the United States due to suspicion that he defrauded cryptocurrency investors of "Luna" and "Terra" of at least $40 billion.
Multimillion-dollar fraud in the U.S. and South Korea
The South Korean justice accuses him of creating a pyramid scheme and has requested his extradition since September 2022 due to fraud suspicions.
Last February, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed charges against Terraform Labs, its CEO and main shareholder, Do Kwon, for the sudden collapse of its cryptocurrencies TerraUSD and Luna in May 2022.
The SEC claims that Do Kwon and Terraform Labs orchestrated a multimillion-dollar scam that, in part, occurred in the United States between 2018 and 2022.
Do Kwon, 33 years old, was arrested in late March 2023 at Podgorica airport under a warrant from South Korea. On June 16, 2023, he was convicted of passport forgery with which he attempted to travel to Dubai on a private flight from Podgorica.
For this crime, Do Kwon served a four-month sentence in prison near Podgorica, and then was transferred to the Acceptance Center for Foreigners near the capital of Montenegro, where he awaited his extradition.