Following his detention in Montenegro, Do Kwon, the South Korean businessman responsible for the $40 billion collapse of the cryptocurrencies terraUSD and Luna, was charged with fraud in the United States.
Eight charges, including securities fraud, wire fraud, commodities fraud, and conspiracy, were unveiled by US authorities against Kwon on Thursday.
Kwon, 31, and another South Korean national were taken into custody in Montenegro early on Thursday, according to the interior ministry of the European nation.
Interior Minister Filip Adzic posted on Twitter that the individual is “suspected to be one of the most wanted fugitives,” South Korean national Do Kwon, the co-founder and CEO of Singapore-based Terraform Labs.
Adzic continued, “The former cryptocurrency king, who is responsible for losses of over $40 billion, was apprehended at the Podgorica airport with forged documents.”
Using “falsified travel documents from Costa Rica, which were established also by Interpol checks,” Kwon and the other man were stopped as they tried to join a flight to Dubai, the ministry said in a statement.
Last year, South Korean authorities claimed that the founder of the cryptocurrency had left Singapore and travelled via Dubai to an unidentified nation.
The criminal accusations come after the US Securities and Exchange Commission last month disclosed a related civil case against Kwon and his Singapore-based business Terraform Labs.
The Financial Times and Wall Street Journal reported that a lawyer for Kwon did not quickly respond to a request for comment.
Owners of the so-called “stablecoin” TerraUSD and Luna, its floating sister currency, lost about $40 billion after it crashed past its $1 base in May.
Authorities claim that the value of the token and Luna were connected, despite the fact that TerraUSD was advertised as being pegged to the US dollar in order to limit wild price fluctuations.
Multiple criminal investigations have been launched by South Korean authorities into the crash, which caused some investors to lose their entire life savings.
Following several scandals in the industry, including the collapse of FTX and the arrest of its creator Sam Bankman-Fried, Kwon’s arrest is the most recent illustration of an increasing crackdown on cryptocurrencies.
