PODGORICA, Montenegro (AP) — Montenegro on Tuesday extradited a South Korean mogul known as "the cryptocurrency king" to the United States, following a decision of its justice ministry earlier this month to accept a U.S. request, while refusing a South Korean handover plea, the Balkan country's authorities said.
Police said that officers of the National Central Bureau of Interpol in Montenegro handed over Do Kwon, the founder of the Singapore crypto firm Terraform Labs, to FBI officers at the Podgorica Airport border crossing.
“Today, on December 31, 2024, he (Do Kwon) was handed over to the competent law enforcement authorities of the United States of America and agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),” a police statement said.
The move follows a months-long legal saga in the case of Do Kwon. Both South Korea and the U.S. had requested Do Kwon's extradition, and various courts in Montenegro over the past months had brought and overturned multiple rulings to extradite Kwon either to the U.S. or his native country.
He and another South Korean were arrested in Montenegro in March 2023 while trying to depart for Dubai, United Arab Emirates, using fake Costa Rican passports. Kwon has served a prison term in Montenegro for using a fake passport.
Kwon was charged in the U.S. with fraud by federal prosecutors in New York over a $40 billion crash of Terraform Labs’ cryptocurrency, which devastated retail investors around the world.
Kwon and five others connected to Terraform had been wanted on allegations of fraud and financial crimes in relation to the implosion of its digital currencies in May 2022.
TerraUSD was designed as a “stablecoin,” a currency that is pegged to stable assets like the dollar to prevent drastic fluctuations in prices. However, around $40 billion in market value was erased for the holders of TerraUSD and its floating sister currency, Luna, after the stablecoin plunged far below its $1 peg.