Interpol issues red notice for arrest of Do Kwon, whereabouts unknown

Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon speaks in an interview with Coinage. The interview was released in August. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Interpol has issued a red notice for Do Kwon.

Prosecutors in Seoul said Monday the international police organization has issued the notice for the arrest of the mastermind behind the failed Terra coins, according to a Bloomberg report.

Kwon is the co-founder of Terraform Labs, the developer of TerraUSD and Luna, which collapsed in May and wiped out about $40 billion of wealth.

Korean prosecutors asked Interpol to issue a red notice for Kwon, saying Kwon is not cooperating with the investigation of the collapse.

An Interpol red notice is issued for fugitives wanted either for prosecution or to serve a sentence. It is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and detain a person pending extradition, surrender or similar legal action, according to Interpol.

The prosecutors said that Kwon is on the run. His whereabouts are unknown.

They say that he went to Singapore in April, a month before the crash of Terra coins, and may have been on the run at the point, according to local media reports last week.

Kwon insisted in an interview released in August that "they haven't reached out to us at all."

The financial authorities said on Monday that "Luna Terra incident in May" accelerated the decline of crypto market this year as investors lost faith in virtual assets.

Average daily trading of cryptocurrencies on virtual asset service providers was down 53 percent to 5.3 trillion won ($3.7 billion) in the first half from the second half of last year, according to a statement by the Financial Services Commission.

The total market capitalization for virtual assets in Korea was down 58 percent to 23 trillion won in the same period.

Bitcoin was the most traded crypto currency in won markets, followed by Ripple and Ether.

BY JIN MIN-JI [jin.minji@joongang.co.kr]