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Update: Korean authorities have since confirmed that the detained person is Do Kwon.
Montenegro Vice President Filip Adzic confirmed the arrest of an individual traveling to Montenegro, Podgorica — suspected to be Terra fugitive Do Kwon.
A translated statement from the VP read:
“Montenegrin police have detained a person suspected of being one of the most wanted fugitives, South Korean citizen Do Kwon, co-founder and CEO of Singapore-based Terraform Labs.”
In the tweet, Adzic called Do Kwon one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, adding that the person detained was traveling with false documents.
Awaiting identity confirmation
In February, reports surfaced that Do Kwon was hiding out in Serbia, which borders Montenegro to the north. A delegation that included members of South Korea’s Justice Ministry and Prosecutor’s Office traveled to Serbia in search of the Terra Labs co-founder.
Adzic said they are waiting for official confirmation of the identity of the person detained. Korean authorities have since confirmed that the detained person is Do Kwon, who was arrested with an aid.
“We checked the age, nationality, and name with the identification card the person had, and confirmed that he was the same person as CEO Kwon with photo data.“
@FatManTerra, who worked to shed light on the alleged fraud during the height of the mania, gave a scathing summary of Do Kwon’s actions.
“He shilled a fake ecosystem built on spoofed transactions. He orchestrated a secret bailout and told the people it was the “strength of his algorithm”. And when retail investors committed suicide, he made jokes at their expense.“
Not holding back, he signed off, hoping that the “full force of the law” would descend upon him.
Terra implosion
On May 9, 2022, the UST stablecoin lost its dollar peg price, triggering a massive slide in its balancing asset, Terra LUNA.
As an algorithmic stablecoin, UST maintained its peg by moderating its supply by burning to decrease, or minting to increase, in conjunction with the opposite action occurring for the balancing asset.
Pre-collapse, UST had become the third-largest stablecoin by market cap, earning itself a degree of legitimacy by achieving that. However, following the collapse — which was the first sign all was not well in the cryptosphere — the contagion effect rippled across the industry, triggering liquidity issues elsewhere.
Investigations into the collapse turned up damning allegations on the Terra ecosystem — including deliberate exploits in the Mirror Protocol left for insiders to drain, the use of shell companies to launder money, and Do Kwon siphoning millions of dollars a month from the project.
An estimated $40 billion was lost, and many lives were ruined.
In an October 2022 interview with Laura Shin of the Unchained Podcast, Do Kwon said fraud charges directed at him by South Korean authorities had no legitimacy.
Specifically, Do Kwon said cryptocurrencies, not being classed as securities in the country, fall outside the remit of applicable law, namely the Capital Markets Act.
