South Korean businessman K Kwon, who was on the run, was arrested in Montenegro. He is accused of large-scale fraud, which led to the collapse of the TerraUSD and Luna cryptocurrencies in May 2022. Investors lost at least $42 billion on this. In addition, a panic began that led to a sharp drop in other cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin.
The first to report the arrest of Kwon was the Minister of the Interior of Montenegro, Filip Adzic. “One of the most wanted in the world was detained at the Podgorica airport fugitives,” he wrote on Twitter.
Since the businessman was traveling on false documents issued under a fictitious name, Montenegro was waiting for official confirmation of his identity from the South Korean authorities. It was reported from Seoul that the fingerprints of a man detained in Podgorica match those of Kwon, according to the national fingerprint database of the Republic of Korea.
Now the Montenegrin authorities must decide what to do with the scammer. Kwon wants to get South Korea and the United States. At home, a warrant for his arrest was issued in September 2022. Kwon has been charged with violating financial market rules. In the United States, the accusations against him sound tougher - “organizing fraudulent schemes with assets in cryptocurrency worth billions of dollars.” The problem is that Montenegro has no extradition treaties with either the United States or South Korea.
To Kwon, he denies his guilt. However, representatives of the US prosecutor’s office claim that he and his company Terraform Labs “failed to provide the public with complete, truthful and reliable information about their Luna and TerraUSD cryptocurrencies, as required by law.”
And Kwon personally and representatives of his company have repeatedly stated that the tokens will grow in price. This misled investors about the stability of the Luna and TerraUSD cryptocurrencies.
In May last year, the value of these cryptocurrencies collapsed to almost zero. Investors in a panic began to quickly get rid of all cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether. This segment of the world market collapsed.
“I am stricken with grief and pain that my invention has brought you,” De Kwon said at the time. And then he disappeared. According to one version, he fled to Serbia. A special delegation from Seoul went to Belgrade to negotiate with the authorities. But there was no fugitive in Serbia.
And now De Kwon appeared in Montenegro, where he was arrested.
Earlier, FACTS reported that the SBU stopped trading on the Internet with passport data and phone numbers of Ukrainians, and near Odessa they caught swindlers who tried to cash in on the relatives of the deceased soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Source: Fakty
I am Joseph Zeman, a journalist who mostly covers world news for the Daily News Hack. I pride myself on being able to find and report stories that others might miss. I have a knack for being able to see both sides of every issue and this allows me to provide readers with well-rounded stories. In addition to my work as a journalist, I am also an author and have written several books on current affairs.
