'Tera·Luna' Kwon Do-hyung Indicted in Montenegro for Forgery of Official Documents

The Montenegrin prosecution has indicted Kwon Do-hyung (32), CEO of Terraform Labs and a key figure in the cryptocurrency 'Terra·Luna' crash incident, on charges of passport forgery, local daily 'Pobjeda' reported on the 20th (local time).

According to the report, the Montenegrin prosecution referred Kwon and his associate Han Mo and one other person to trial on charges of forgery of official documents. The Montenegrin prosecution extended Kwon's detention period, which was set to expire on the 24th, by up to 30 days.

Kwon Do-hyung, CEO of Terraform Labs [Photo by Yonhap News]

Kwon was captured at Podgorica International Airport, the capital of Montenegro, on the 23rd of last month, 11 months after fleeing. At the time, he was hiding in Serbia and was caught trying to board a flight to Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), using forged Costa Rican and Belgian passports at Podgorica International Airport to evade the investigation.

Belgian and Korean travel documents were found in their luggage, and after authorities checked border inspection records, it was confirmed that the two had no record of entering Montenegro. The police seized three laptops and five mobile phones from Kwon and the others.

With Kwon indicted in Montenegro, the possibility of his extradition to South Korea has increased to be delayed. This is because the transfer of custody to another country can only occur after Montenegro's judicial procedures are completed. Montenegrin authorities have a policy that those sentenced in their country must serve their sentence before being extradited to the requesting country.

According to Montenegrin law, if found guilty of forgery of official documents, the sentence ranges from a minimum of 3 months to a maximum of 5 years in prison. However, if a 5-year sentence is imposed, precedent shows that typically only 6 months of imprisonment is actually served.

Kwon is the co-founder of Terraform Labs along with former Chai Corporation CEO Shin Hyun-sung. Despite knowing the risk that the prices of Terra and Luna could crash simultaneously, he promoted Terra as a profitable coin, causing investors damages exceeding 50 trillion won.

He reportedly left the country at the end of April last year, just before the Terra·Luna incident, stayed in Singapore where the headquarters is located, then fled to Serbia via Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) in September last year.

The Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office's Joint Financial Crime Investigation Unit issued an arrest warrant for Kwon in September last year on charges of violating the Capital Markets Act and has been tracking him since. The prosecution froze 95 billion won worth of Kwon's virtual assets and requested a red notice from Interpol.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also indicted Kwon last month on fraud charges, alleging that he embezzled Bitcoin worth 312 billion won and deposited it in a Swiss bank.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.