A Montenegrin appeals court has upheld a ruling to extradite a South Korean mogul known as 'the cryptocurrency king' back to his native country, rejecting a bid to send him to the United States. The decision comes after a lengthy legal battle involving Do Kwon, the founder of Terraform Labs, who was arrested in Montenegro last year. Both South Korea and the U.S. had sought Kwon's extradition from Montenegro.
Over the past few months, Montenegrin courts have issued and overturned multiple rulings regarding Kwon's extradition to either the U.S. or South Korea. The Montenegrin Appeals Court confirmed on Thursday that its decision is final and legally binding. The timeline for Kwon's extradition remains unclear at this point.
Kwon faces fraud charges in the U.S., where federal prosecutors in New York have accused him of being involved in a $40 billion crash of Terraform Labs' cryptocurrency. The collapse of the cryptocurrency had a significant impact on retail investors worldwide. Kwon and another South Korean individual were apprehended in Montenegro while attempting to travel to Dubai using counterfeit Costa Rican passports. Kwon has already served a prison sentence in Montenegro for using a fake passport.
Alongside Kwon, five other individuals linked to Terraform Labs are also under investigation for alleged fraud and financial crimes related to the collapse of the digital currencies in May 2022. TerraUSD, a stablecoin designed to be pegged to stable assets like the dollar to prevent price fluctuations, experienced a drastic drop in value, wiping out approximately $40 billion in market capitalization for holders of TerraUSD and its companion currency, Luna.
