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South Korean cryptocurrency trader Do Kwon will be extradited to the United States from Montenegro for the fall of two digital tokens – TerraUSD and Luna tokens.
For months, the US and South Korea have been seeking the removal of Kwon, saying that fraud led to the failure of the company behind the tokens, which sank $ 40bn (£31.7bn) from investors and shook the global crypto markets.
Montenegro has no extradition agreements with the US or South Korea, so the issue had to be fought in the courts.
The ruling marks the end of more than 18 months of rulings and amendments.
“The Minister of Justice, Bojan Bozovic, issued a decision to approve the extradition of the accused, Kwon Do Hyung, to the United States of America,” the Ministry of Justice said in a statement.
“It was decided that most of the provisions of the law were in favor of the request of the authorities of the United States of America to be reinstated,” he said.
It also said that Kwon had agreed to be extradited to South Korea by the United States.
In February, US authorities accused Kwon and his company Terraform Labs of “creating multi-billion dollar crypto asset fraud”.
“We claim that Terraform and Do Kwon failed to provide the public with adequate, fair, and truthful information as required for the protection of many crypto assets, particularly Luna and TerraUSD,” said the chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Gary Gensler. he said in his speech at the time.
The US said that Kwon repeatedly said that the tokens would increase in value, misleading investors about the stability of TerraUSD.
Despite the billions of businesses, TerraUSD and Luna went into liquidation in May 2022.
It led to trading in other major cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin.
In September 2022, Interpol issued a “red notice” for Kwon’s arrest. He was in Singapore before his business collapsed and fled to Serbia before being deported to Montenegro.
Kwon was arrested in March 2023 while trying to board a flight to Dubai at the airport in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro.
In June 2023, he was sentenced to four months in prison in Montenegro after being found guilty of forging official documents.
Terraform Labs’ former chief financial officer, Hon Chang-joon, was extradited to South Korea in February, after spending four months in prison in Montenegro on fraud charges.
