Do Kwon Extradited to the US

Montenegro authorities have handed over Do Kwon to US authorities after holding him for 20 months.

According to local media, Montenegrin police on December 31, 2024 handed over Do Kwon – the founder of Terraform Labs, the company that developed two collapsed cryptocurrency projects LUNA and UST – to US authorities following a new extradition ruling issued by the country's Ministry of Justice.

Vijesti news agency reported that South Korean citizen Kwon Do-Hyung was handed over to the US side by Montenegrin special police, with the support of Interpol, at Podgorica airport.

As reported by Coin68, the Montenegrin Ministry of Justice announced on December 27 that it would choose the US as the country to extradite Do Kwon instead of his home country of South Korea.

Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajić also confirmed the information via social network X (Twitter), affirming that although his country welcomes technological advances in crypto and AI, it will not tolerate fraudulent acts.

This is the end of the legal disputes within Montenegro, which began when the country arrested Do Kwon in March 2023 on charges of using a fake passport. Since then, the country’s Justice Department and Supreme Court have repeatedly challenged and overturned the decision to extradite Do Kwon between the United States and South Korea, both of which want to try him for his role in the LUNA-UST collapse in mid-2022.

In the United States, Do Kwon will face criminal charges of two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of securities fraud, two counts of wire fraud, asset fraud, and market manipulation related to LUNA and UST, which caused a loss of $60 billion.

He initially supported extradition to South Korea, where financial crimes typically carry a prison sentence of 30 to 40 years. Meanwhile, US law has separate penalties for each crime, making the Terraform Labs founder’s sentence potentially much higher.

It is unclear when Do Kwon’s trial in the United States will take place.

Terraform Labs agreed in June 2024 to pay a $4.47 billion fine to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to end a lawsuit against the company, but later announced its dissolution.