- Kwon was arrested early Thursday in Montenegro while heading to Dubai.
- He has been on the run for six months since the controversial collapse of Terra LUNA.
Do Kwon, the crypto entrepreneur behind the collapsed Terra LUNA and UST, was charged with fraud in the US late Thursday, shortly after being arrested in Montenegro.
Kwon is facing eight counts of charges: two counts each of securities fraud, wire fraud, and commodities fraud, according to a report first published in the Financial Times. The allegations, brought before a federal court in New York, are similar to separate charges leveled against the blockchain entrepreneur turned fugitive and his company Terraform Labs last month.
Kwon Was Arrested Alongside His Executive Aide
The arrest of Kwon hit the headlines Thursday after the Montenegrin authorities reported that a person that fits the description of the South Korean national had been intercepted trying to board a flight to Dubai. He was arrested alongside an individual, Han Chang-joon, believed to be his executive aide – for using falsified travel documents.
‘‘The former ‘cryptocurrency King’, behind losses of more than 40 billion dollars, was detained at the Podgorica airport with falsified documents, and he is wanted by South Korea, the USA, and Singapore. We are waiting for official confirmation of his identity,’’ wrote Filip Adzic, Montenegro’s minister of interior.
Terra LUNA and terraUSD (UST) collapsed in May 2022 after the stablecoin (UST) lost its intended peg to the dollar’s value. Stablecoins are digital assets that facilitate crypto transactions by maintaining a peg to the value of a real-world commodity.
See Related: Do Kwon Cashes Out Almost 10 BTC After Fleeing To Serbia
The epic collapse of the two assets wiped out more than $40 billion from investors. It destabilized the digital asset space, sinking major crypto firms, including Three Arrows and Celsius, into bankruptcy.
After Interpol issued a red notice against Kwon last September, he was reported by the South Korean authorities to have gone missing. Later, reports emerged that he was hiding in Serbia, a Balkan country sharing a border with Montenegro.
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