South Korea Defeats United States In Do Kwon Extradition Battle

A lengthy court battle to extradite a disgraced crypto mogul, Do Kwon, has seemingly come to a close following a court ruling Thursday.

The Appellate Court of Montenegro ruled that Kwon – founder of the defunct Terra blockchain – will be sent to South Korea for prosecution.

Do Kwon Set For South Korea

The latest ruling re-confirms a prior decision from a lower court, the High Court of Podgorica, to sent Kwon back to his home country rather than the United States, which also sought his extradition. A statement to the Podgorica court’s website confirmed that there was no appeal against the decision.

It can also be considered a win for Kwon, since experts claim the U.S. would likely have punished the billionaire much harder than his homeland.

“The US probably has the largest number of victims by both number and dollar amount,”said Terrence Yang, Managing Director at Swan Bitcoin, back in March.

“It seems a bit ridiculous for the Montenegro court to extradite Do Kwon to South Korea, where he might get acquitted or a comically light sentence as opposed to the United States,” he continued.

Following the latest decision, Do Kwon’s lawyer Gordin Rodic told Bloomberg that Montenegro would arrange for Kwon’s extradition to South Korea “as soon as possible” with assistance from the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).

Since being released from prison on bail in March, Kwon’s fate has bounced back and forth between Montenegro court’s amid debate over which country had the right to his extradition.

Initially slated for the United States, the ruling was overturned in early March, as it turned out that South Korea had requested his extradition first. Later, Montenegro’s Supreme Court once again ruled in favor of the U.S.

Though numerous court rulings have overturned one another throughout the debacle, a final decision can only come from Montenegro’s Minister of Justice Andrej Milovic.

Terra’s Collapse

The Terra blockchain collapsed in May of 2022 as the protocol’s algorithmic stablecoin mechanism destabilized. The combined losses across both the TerraUSD (UST) tokens and the blockchain’s native LUNA token lost investors $44 billion.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) later sued Kwon and Terraform Labs, requesting the group to agree to pay $5.3 billion in fines for their harm to investors.