Montenegro court confirms extradition of disgraced crypto mogul Do Kwon to Korea

Korean cryptocurrency entrepreneur, co-founder of Terraform Labs, Do Kwon, is taken to court in Podgorica on June 16, 2023, following his arrest on March 24 at the Montenegrin capital's international airport. [AFP/YONHAP]

An appeals court in Montenegro confirmed a ruling on Wednesday to extradite the failed crypto mogul Do Kwon, co-founder of Terraform Labs, to Korea rather than the United States.

Kwon’s extradition may take place as early as this weekend, when his prison term in the Balkan country for using falsified official documents expires, according to a Bloomberg report.

The Montenegro appeals court did not overturn a previous ruling by the high court that approved Kwon’s extradition to Korea to face criminal charges over his failed inventions of TerraUSD and Luna coins, which resulted in the crash of approximately $40 billion in market value in 2022.

The court said that the request for Kwon was first lodged by Korea.

“Deciding on the appeal of the defendant’s counsel, the panel of the Court of Appeals assessed that the first-instance court had correctly established that the request of the Republic of South Korea arrived earlier in the order of arrival compared to the request of the USA, so it correctly assessed this and other criteria,” the court’s notice said.

The ruling is a win for Kwon, as penalties for white-collar crimes are lower in Korea than in the United States.

FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried faces potentially decades in prison after he was convicted of fraud in New York in November. He was prosecuted over fraud and related crimes by the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office, which also indicted Kwon on fraud charges.

“This is final, and there are no more complaints,” Goran Rodic, Kwon’s lawyer in Montenegro, told Bloomberg. “We are satisfied with the decision by the Appellate Court, which proved with its work that it respects the rule of law.”

Kwon also faces a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit over the plunge of his creations. The SEC suit will go to trial at the end of March.

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