top of page
ad cnp.png
Writer's pictureIshita Bora

South Korean Prosecutors Requested Interpol Intervene Against Terra Co-Founder



Reports said that South Korean prosecutors have reportedly requested Interpol intervene in their case against Terra co-founder Do Kwon by issuing a "Red Notice," suggesting global law enforcement agencies may attempt to find and detain him.


It has been reported that the Seoul Southern District prosecutors’ office said it had “begun the procedure” to place Kwon on Interpol’s Red Notice list following steps to revoke the Terra co-founder’s passport while he was in Singapore. Interpol’s website states that a Red Notice is requested by authorities “locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action,” but the agency cannot compel local law enforcement to arrest the subject of such notice.


A spokesperson for the prosecutors’ office reportedly said:

“We are doing our best to locate and arrest [Kwon]. He is clearly on the run as his company’s key finance people also left for the same country during that time.”

However, Kwon has continued to be active on social media amid potential arrest and prosecution. On Sunday, Kwon claimed he was “not ‘on the run’ or anything similar” but did not reveal his location — his Twitter account still showed him in Singapore at the time of publication. Reuters reported on Saturday that authorities in Singapore said Kwon was no longer in the country, having relocated there from South Korea in April.


The report said that the ongoing saga with Kwon and Terra started in May when the project’s algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD Classic (USTC), originally TerraUSD (UST), depegged from the US dollar and dropped to almost zero within weeks. The price of Terra (LUNA), now Terra Classic (LUNC), also crashed amid liquidity issues reported at platforms including Celsius.

Likewise, Kwon, certain Terra employees, and the company were the target of an investigation by South Korean financial authorities, who reportedly raided the offices of crypto exchanges Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax in July. On Sept. 14, a South Korean court reportedly issued a warrant for the arrest of Kwon and five individuals connected to Terra for allegedly violating capital markets laws.


South Korea has no extradition agreement with Singapore. According to Interpol, there are currently 7,151 individuals publicly named on the agency’s Red Notice list out of 69,270.


Thus, as of September 19, Kwon was not among them and the only South Korean national so named was 59-year-old Lee Changhwan, wanted by Indian authorities.


Source: Cointelegraph


 

Comments


bottom of page