A suspected Terra co-founder Do Kwon was arrested in the Balkan country on March 23, according to a post by Montenegro's Interior Minister Filip Adzic. Since the news was first published, local news outlet Vijesti has confirmed that the Twitter account posting the news came from Montenegro's interior minister and that the person arrested is a South Korean national.
On the same day, local South Korean news outlet Yonhap News Agency said authorities had confirmed the arrestee was the same Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon based on "photograph data" and the name, nationality and age on the ID card. Han Mo, an assistant to the former blockchain executive, was also reportedly arrested with him in Podgorica. However, the Korean National Police Agency stated that it is still waiting for the "fingerprint information" from the Montenegrin authorities to fully verify that the arrested persons are Kwon and Mao. South Korean prosecutors had previously revoked Kwon's passport in October 2022.
As Adzic put it, a suspected former “cryptocurrency king” has been detained at Podgorica airport for “falsified documents” while authorities await official identification. Montenegro is geographically located south of Serbia, bordering the country. South Korean prosecutors have accused Kwon of hiding in Serbia, which has no extradition agreement with South Korea, since December 2022. On September 26, 2022, Interpol issued a Red Notice to arrest Kwon for his alleged role in the $40 billion Luna Classic (LUNC) and TerraUSD (USTC) ecosystem collapse in May 2022. Regulators in South Korea, Singapore and the United States.
Montenegro reportedly has no extradition agreement with either Singapore or South Korea. However, it does have an old extradition treaty with the US and has complied with extradition requests for US nationals in the past. The country is also in communication with Interpol regarding extradition. Kwon has spent significant time in the United States in the past, but it is unclear whether he is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident or has committed a crime against a U.S. national for which he may be extradited.
On February 16, 2023, the SEC charged Kwon with "orchestrating a multibillion-dollar crypto-securities fraud involving algorithmic stablecoins and other crypto-securities." The U.S. Department of Justice has also been investigating Kwon’s role in Terra’s ecosystem collapse since March. However, no criminal charges have been filed against Kwon in the United States.
