Interpol introduced this night the arrest of Kwon Do-hyeong, also called Do Kwon, a disgraced crypto fugitive.
Crypto fugitive Do Kwon arrested in Montenegro, says inside minister https://t.co/pl9PshdPNb
— Monetary Instances (@FT) March 23, 2023
Do Kwon is the founding father of TerraUSD stablecoin and Luna, two digital currencies that misplaced an estimated $40 billion final 12 months.
Interpol apprehended Kwon, 31, and one other individual of curiosity at an airport in Montenegro. In line with the Inside Ministry there, the 2 have been utilizing cast paperwork to journey to Dubai.
Because the Minister of Inside @filip_adzic, introduced earlier as we speak, two residents, Kwon Do Hyeong and Hon Chang Joon, have been apprehended and dropped at the Fundamental State Prosecutor’s Workplace in Podgorica, on legal expenses for the legal offense of doc forgery below (1/3) pic.twitter.com/iS0rRs2Fwv
— mupCG (@MupCg) March 23, 2023
“He was arrested on the airport with counterfeit documentation and is needed by a number of nations, together with the USA, South Korea, and Singapore,” Montenegrin Inner Affairs Minister Filip Adžić wrote in a Fb submit.
The arrest is the fruits of a global months-long seek for Do Kwon. South Korea had requested Interpol to concern a “purple discover,” which permits different nations to arrest Kwon.
In line with the New York Times, U.S. prosecutors within the Southern District of New York filed legal expenses in opposition to Mr. Kwon a couple of hours after his arrest. The costs embody wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, and conspiracy to defraud and have interaction in market manipulation.
Who’s Do Kwon?
Kwon graduated from Stanford and briefly labored at Apple earlier than designing his two cryptocurrencies. TerraUSD was a “stablecoin,” supposed to take care of a continuing worth of $1, whereas Luna’s worth fluctuated.
Between 2021 and early 2022, Luna was valued at $40 billion. Kwon turned broadly standard. His followers known as themselves “Lunatics.”
However Luna in the end crashed—its worth cleaned in a single day. The crash triggered a domino impact on different standard cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Quickly after, Kwon went into hiding.
Kwon claimed on Twitter that he was “not on the run.”
I’m not “on the run” or something related – for any authorities company that has proven curiosity to speak, we’re in full cooperation and we do not have something to cover
— Do Kwon ? (@stablekwon) September 17, 2022
However in keeping with CNN, a South Korean courtroom issued an arrest warrant for Kwon final September. He was believed to be in Serbia.
