On New Year’s Eve, Montenegro authorities announced that Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon was extradited to the United States. The development comes after the Minister of Justice signed the order for his extradition, concluding the prolonged battle between the US and South Korea to bring the crypto entrepreneur to trial.
Terraform Labs Founder Handed Over To US Authorities
On December 31, Montenegro extradited Do Kwon to the United States to face trial over his role in Terraform Labs’ collapse in 2022. As reported by 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 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 US for crimes of conspiracy to commit fraud.”
Last week, Montenegro’s Minister of Justice, Bojan Božović, refused South Korea’s request and signed an order for Do Kwon’s extradition to the US. Both countries sought his extradition for over a year, resulting in a prolonged legal saga to bring the once-influential crypto mogul to trial.
As local news reported, “The Department of Justice has considered all the facts and circumstances and assessed criteria” and concluded that the Terraform Labs co-founder should be extradited to the US.
Given the above, it was concluded that most of the criteria provided for 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 of America, while at the same time refusing extradition to the Republic of Korea.
Reportedly, Do Kwon’s Montenegrin lawyers criticized the Minister of Justice’s decision and announced 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 entrepreneur was under Montenegro’s custody for over a year and a half. In March 2023, authorities detained him alongside Terraform Lab’s former finance officer, Han Chang-joon, for attempting to use falsified travel documents at the 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 downfall was one of the biggest collapses in crypto history, wiping out “around $50 billion worth of the network’s two asset offerings, TerraUSD (UST) and Luna (LUNA), in the span of a week,” detailed the Federal Reserve Board in a paper.
Do Kwon was then sentenced to four months in prison in Montenegro, later receiving an extra two months at the request of the US and South Korea. Upon release, he was escorted to an immigration center to await the Montenegro High Court’s decision on the extradition requests.
