SEOUL: South Korea indicted Terraform Labs co-founder Daniel Shin along with nine others on multiple charges including violations of capital markets law.
Prosecutors froze 246.8 billion won ($184.7 million) in assets from the people so far, the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office said at a press briefing yesterday.
Officials indicted eight people including Shin for illegal trading and two additional people for breach of trust. Those charged are all directly linked to the Terra project, including marketing, systems development and management, prosecutors said.
Officials called the Terra project a "fabrication" from its inception, saying in a statement that the algorithm that helped keep the coin at a stable price was impossible to get right. Shin and others charged caused "astronomical damage" for global investors, the statement said.
Prior to the Terra collapse, those involved took 463 billion won in profit, and officials are actively tracking illegal gains, they said, adding that in the process of building Terra, those charged exposed their clients' payment details illegally and embezzled corporate funds.
Shin's lawyers didn't immediately respond to requests seeking comment.
Prosecutors had recently redoubled efforts to locate and arrest Shin, a financial technology entrepreneur who helped set up Terra, a crypto project that collapsed in a $60 billion wipeout last year.
Last month, his co-founder Do Kwon was arrested in Montenegro on charges of fraud and violation of capital markets law. Kwon, a fugitive from his native South Korea, is also wanted by the US.
The case centres around the implosion of TerraUSD, an algorithmic stablecoin, and its sister coin Luna. Both collapsed in May last year, accelerating a broader $2 trillion downturn in the crypto market.
Korean officials are collaborating with the US on the case, they said, without providing specifics.
Shin's lawyers have previously said he split from the company in 2020 and hasn't had involvement in operations since.
Prosecutors earlier sought an arrest warrant for him, and a South Korean court in December rejected it, saying he wasn't likely to destroy evidence or pose a flight risk. BLOOMBERG
