Do Kwon Will Return to South Korea After Montenegrin Court Rejects US Extradition Request

The Montenegrin Court of Appeals has rejected the US request to extradite Do Kwon. It also ruled that he be transferred to South Korea, his homeland.

Montenegro has decided to extradite Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon to South Korea, where he is wanted for questioning over the collapse of the Terra ecosystem last year.

The Montenegrin Court of Appeals on Monday rejected a US request to extradite Kwon, and instead ruled that he be sent to his homeland.

The court’s decision comes after months of legal wrangling over Kwon’s extradition. Both the US and South Korea have filed requests to extradite Kwon, who was arrested in Montenegro in March.

Kwon’s lawyers had argued that he should be sent to South Korea, where he faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison for fraud and other charges. In the US, he could face a much harsher sentence.

The US Justice Department had earlier accused Kwon and Terraform Labs of "knowingly and willfully" scheming to defraud investors by making "false and misleading statements" about Terra’s cryptocurrencies.

Kwon has maintained that he is innocent of any wrongdoing and that the Terra ecosystem was the victim of a broader market downturn.

The Montenegrin court’s decision is likely to be appealed by the US, which has already filed a separate lawsuit against Kwon in a federal court in New York.

The court had earlier confirmed the decision of the Supreme Court in Podgorica, which was taken at the end of June this year.

Kwon’s story is a tale of Icarus – from rise to fall. The businessman had successfully created and promoted Terra, a project that aimed to offer the market an algorithmic stablecoin, to rival the likes of USDT. However, the groundbreaking solution turned out to be something – to put it mildly – unsuccesful.

The project collapsed, generating losses of investors to the tune of USD 40 billion. The case sparked interest from services around the world. Even Interpol tried to help arrest the businessman.

But nothing helped. Kwon simply disappeared into thin air – he vanished and no arrests were made for several months. During that time, he was mocking the services, writing posts on social media in which he claimed that he was not hiding at all.

At the same time, he did not show up for interrogations in South Korea, which suggested that he was hiding somewhere and trying to escape justice. This, in turn, suggested that Terra was a scam.

He was finally arrested at the airport in Montenegro in March 2023. The reason? He tried to cross the border using a fake passport. For this, he was also sentenced to prison in the country of detention. He has been waiting for a decision on which country he will ultimately end up in for the past few months.

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