WSJ: Montenegro mulling Do Kwon’s extradition to the U.S.

The Terraform Labs founder could be moved to the U.S. instead of South Korea to stand trial over a multi-billion ecosystem collapse involving LUNA and UST.

Do Kwon, creator of the Terra blockchain, may be extradited to the U.S. for criminal prosecution by early 2024, according to sources familiar with the matter. 

The final decision rests with Montenegro’s Minister for Justice, Andrej Milovic, who has communicated his plans to surrender Kwon to American authorities to a few officials. Per the Wall Street Journal, Milovic has also informed the U.S. ambassador. 

Kwon has been the subject of a tussle between his home country of South Korea and the U.S., where Terra had thousands of users, over which government is to prosecute the former crypto billionaire turned fugitive.

Both governments reportedly plan to put Kwon on trial for fraud and securities-related violations. In South Korea, prosecutors said Terra’s former CEO broke the Capital Markets Acts, an offense that could translate into up to 40 years in prison. 

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Kwon for offering unregistered securities in TerraLuna and leveraging misleading marketing material to promote TerraUSD, an algorithmic stablecoin that collapsed along with Terra’s ecosystem in the summer of 2022.

His lawyers attempted to dismiss the case while SEC prosecutors pushed for a summary judgment.

Do Kwon had been imprisoned in the Balkan nation since March 2023 after authorities arrested him at a Podgorica airport with a falsified Costa Rican passport.

News of Kwon’s extradition to the U.S. arrived on the heels of his appeal to a court ruling that approved his transfer out of Montenegro, crypto.news reported, although previous appeals to revoke his four-month prison sentence were denied.