Source: bitcoinist
Compiled by: Blockchain Knight
A court document has revealed Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajić’s early investment in Terraform Labs, a surprising development that has sent shockwaves through both political and crypto asset circles.
The news comes after Terraform Labs recently reached a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over allegations of a $40 billion fraud against the company.
Prime Minister Spajić, who took office in October 2023, is now at the center of an emerging controversy involving disgraced Crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon.
According to Montenegrin media Vijesti, US court documents revealed that Spajić was one of the original supporters of Terraform Labs as a private investor.
In April 2018, he invested $75,000 to acquire 750,000 Terra (LUNA) tokens, ranking 16th among early investors. This was during the initial fundraising phase of the Crypto Asset project, which failed four years later.
Citing a financial expert, Vijesti explained that Spajić bought LUNA tokens at a significantly low price of 10 cents per token, a common practice for early-stage investments due to the high risk involved. During this period, 14 individuals and 10 companies raised a total of approximately $13.75 million in two days.
In early 2022, the LUNA token reached a high of $119, but soon after, the LUNA token plummeted to nearly zero as the crypto project collapsed.
If Spajić had not sold any of his token holdings before the crash, his potential losses could have amounted to nearly $90 million, reflecting the dramatic rise and fall in token values.
The political implications of the revelations are significant, especially given the timing of Do Kwon’s legal troubles. Kwon, who is currently in Montenegro, faces extradition to the United States or South Korea on charges of orchestrating a massive fraud.
The complexity of Spajić's case goes far beyond financial losses.
He has previously said that it was the company he worked for, not him personally, that was defrauded by Terraform Labs, but the disclosure of his direct investment challenges that assertion and raises questions about his financial disclosures and ethical conduct during his tenure.
To date, Spajić has not publicly acknowledged his personal financial losses in the Terraform disaster. When answering media inquiries, he has been evasive and focused only on the losses incurred by his company.
The Prime Minister’s Office and the Government Public Relations Office have not yet responded to questions about the nature of his investment and his current holdings of Luna tokens.
Another point of contention concerns Spajić’s compliance with regulatory requirements.
According to Vijesti, he did not disclose his ownership of LUNA tokens in his financial declarations to the Bureau for the Prevention of Corruption. Spajić’s earlier financial disclosures showed that he also owned other crypto assets such as BTC and Ethereum, but did not specifically mention LUNA.
This oversight raises significant concerns about transparency and potential conflicts of interest, particularly given the timing of his investment and the subsequent regulatory investigation into Terraform Labs.
While Spajić’s statements lack clarity, recent revelations of U.S. court documents paint a complex picture of Spajić’s financial and political entanglements with the world of crypto assets.
