The arrested crypto fugitive and Terraform Labs founder Kwon Do-hyung, who faces fraud charges in the U.S. and South Korea, has “zero ” identifiable assets in his native South Korea, prosecutors said on Friday. Kwon, who led the US$40 billion Terra-Luna crypto project that collapsed in May last year, was arrested in Montenegro on March 23 for allegedly traveling on forged passports along with Terraform’s chief financial officer Han Chang-jun.
See related article: Montenegro hints U.S. may get to extradite Terra fugitive Do Kwon ahead of South Korea
Fast facts
- South Korean prosecutors say that nine former and current executives of Terraform Labs illegitimately amassed 414.5 billion Korean won (US$314.2 million) from the project, according to a report from national news broadcaster KBS, which Seoul Southern District Prosecutors confirmed with Forkast via text message.
- Prosecutors say about 91.4 billion won of the specified amount belongs to Kwon, but confirmed none of his assets are within their jurisdiction.
- Local prosecutors have provisionally seized assets belonging to Terraform co-founder Shin Hyun-seung, also known as Daniel Shin, including real estate and imported automobiles. Prosecutors allege that Shin gained illegal profits of more than 154 billion won from the collapsed Terra-Luna project.
- The local authorities have also recently requested Binance and other global exchanges to freeze cryptocurrencies that they allege belong to Shin, a prosecutors’ office spokesperson told Forkast in a text message. While the spokesperson declined to reveal the exact date of the request, she said Binance has not responded to their request.
- Claims and counterclaims about Kwon’s assets have been batted back and forth for months. In September, prosecutors said they asked OKX and KuCoin to freeze 39 billion won (US$29.6 million) in cryptocurrencies owned by Do Kwon that were deposited on the exchanges through the Kwon-affiliated Luna Foundation Guard’s digital wallet on Binance.
- Kwon rejected those claims on Twitter, saying he never used those exchanges.
- South Korea and the U.S. have both sent the Montenegro authorities requests to extradite Kwon on charges including fraud and securities law violations. Kwon and Terraform Labs have repeatedly said the charges are baseless and politically motivated.
- A South Korean court in March rejected for the second time a request by prosecutors for an arrest warrant for Daniel Shin, repeating that the court didn’t regard him a flight risk or likely to tamper with evidence regarding the investigation into the collapse of the Terra-Luna cryptocurrency and stablecoin. The court denied an arrest warrant for Shin in December.
See related article: South Korea freezes Terra cofounder Daniel Shin’s US$104 mln in assets; CEO Do Kwon tweets he was wrong, not fraudulent