SEOUL, March 5 (Yonhap) — An appeals court in the Balkan country of Montenegro has overruled an earlier decision to extradite Do Kwon, the co-founder of the cryptocurrency firm Terraform Labs, to the United States to face fraud charges, the court’s website showed Tuesday.
Earlier, the High Court in Podgorica ruled that Kwon should be extradited to the U.S. rather than to his home country, South Korea.
The appellate court on Tuesday (Montenegro time) said it accepted Kwon’s appeal and has decided to send the case back to the trial court.
Before he was nabbed in Montenegro in March 2023, Kwon had been on the loose after fleeing Korea amid a probe in connection with the crash of Terraform Labs’ TerraUSD and Luna coins in May 2022. The crash was estimated to have wiped out nearly 50 trillion won (US$37 billion) in market value.
Kwon has been wanted by the U.S., where he was charged with fraud by federal prosecutors in New York.
South Korean prosecutors have also sought the extradition of Kwon on a set of allegations related to the crypto debacle.
TerraUSD was designed as a stablecoin, pegged to stable assets like the U.S. dollar. However, holders of TerraUSD and Luna lost most of their assets after the stablecoin plunged far below its $1 peg.
This file photo taken June 16, 2023, and provided by the Montenegro-based daily newspaper Vijesti shows disgraced South Korean crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon heading to the district court in Podgorica, the capital city of Montenegro, to attend his trial on charges of using a fake passport. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
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