Do Kwon's extradition to Korea nixed by Montenegro's top court

Montenegrin police officers escort Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon in Montenegro's capital Podgorica on March 23. [AP/YONHAP]

The extradition of Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon to his home country of Korea has been scrapped by the Montenegrin top court in yet another turn of the events involving the disgraced crypto mogul's fate.

The Supreme Court of the Balkan country on Friday overturned a previous decision by an appeals court on March 20 to extradite Kwon to Korea, sending the case back to a lower court after the top prosecutors’ office requested the top court decide whether the procedures behind the appeals court’s recent ruling were legal.

The prosecutors’ office claimed that the ruling violated due process as it was handed down irregularly through summary procedures and judicial overreach.

The latest development marks another twist in the debacle, as the High Court in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, initially ruled that Kwon should be extradited to the United States rather than his home country on March 5.

Justice Minister of Montenegro Andrej Milović now has the final say in the matter. Milović has been leaning toward extradition to the United States, where Kwon is expected face more a severe sentence as penalties for white-collar crimes are heavier in the United States than they are in Korea.

Meanwhile, Kwon was found liable for misleading investors before the massive collapse of his cryptocurrencies in 2022 in a U.S. civil court on Friday, ruling in favor of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against him.

Kwon, the co-founder of Singapore-based cryptocurrency firm Terraform Labs, was arrested in Montenegro in March 2023 after months on the run with forged passports. He had been on the lam following the crash of Terraform Labs’ TerraUSD and Luna coins in May 2022, which eliminated nearly $40 billion of market value.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]