South Korean prosecutors have arrested a Terraform Labs employee, in their first arrest under the investigation of the Terra-LUNA collapse. A bench warrant, which allows law enforcement to take suspects into custody, was issued on Wednesday for the arrested employee.
See related article: Terra CEO Do Kwon to lose his passport within a month
Fast facts
- Seoul’s Southern District Prosecutors’ Office issued a bench warrant on Wednesday for Yoo, Terra’s head of general affairs, under charges of violating the capital markets act, fraud and breach of duty among others, the district prosecutor Choi Sung-kook confirmed with Forkast. Only Yoo’s last name was revealed.
- The Seoul Southern District Court was working on giving a “direct judgment of warrant” on Yoo on Thursday morning in Korea, to make a final decision on whether or not to grant the bench warrant. The decision will be reached within the day.
- Choi declined to reveal the exact date and location of the arrest.
- The prosecutors are alleging that Yoo used bot programming to inflate and manipulate the market price of Terra’s cryptocurrency.
- Yoo is one of the Terra associates for whom local prosecutors issued an arrest warrant on Sept. 14, alongside Terraform Labs cofounder and chief Kwon Do-hyung, or Do Kwon. Yoo is reportedly part of Kwon’s close inner circle at Terra.
- South Korea has nullified Terra chief Kwon’s passport and requested Interpol to issue a “red notice” alongside the arrest warrant, to investigate the crash of Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin and sister cryptocurrency in May.
See related article: S.Korea gov’t failed, special prosecutor needed on Terra-LUNA, lawmaker says
