Business & Economy

Montenegro extradites Terraform Labs executive to South Korea

Seoul, Feb 6 (EFE).- A financial executive of the cryptocurrency developer Terraform Labs has been extradited by Montenegro to South Korea, the Asian country’s justice ministry reported Tuesday.

Han Chang-joon, 37, was scheduled to land at Incheon airport at around 2 pm local time (05:00 GMT) and was expected to be transferred to the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor’s Office, which is investigating alleged fraud valued at almost 50 billion won (more than $37 billion) related to the company’s two cryptocurrencies, Yonhap news agency reported.

Han, who was the company’s chief financial officer, was arrested along with a Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon in March last year at Podgorica Airport while they were trying to board a flight to Dubai with forged passports.

The South Korean Ministry of Justice, which at that time requested their extradition, thanked Montenegro in a statement for “cooperating with the extradition of Han” and vowed to continue working for the repatriation of Kwon, the key suspect.

The extradition of Kwon, who is currently detained in Montenegro, must be decided before Feb. 15 when his detention expires.

Kwon and the Terraform Labs team are accused of defrauding their investors, affected by the sudden fall of their TerraUSD and Luna cryptocurrencies in May 2022.

TerraUSD was a ‘stable coin’ (digital asset backed by a stable currency) pegged to the US dollar through a complex algorithm linked to Luna, an unbacked cryptocurrency.

South Korean prosecutors accuse Kwon specifically of implementing a Ponzi scheme, a type of pyramid scheme in which supposed profits are paid to investors that are actually funds from subsequent investors. EFE

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