key takeaways
- Montenegrin police detained a person believed to be Do Kwon.
- South Korean authorities have provided visual confirmation, but are awaiting fingerprint information.
- Kwon was arrested at the Podgorica airport with forged documents.
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Terra’s leader, Do Kwon, was detained at the Podgorica airport by Montenegrin police. Previously it was believed that he was hiding in Serbia.
six months on the run
The law has finally caught up with Do Kwon.
Minister of the Interior of Montenegro Filip Adzic tweeted today that the Montenegrin police had arrested a person suspected of being the leader of Terra, Do Kwon.
Adzic claimed that Kwon was detained at Podgorica airport with “falsified documents”, meaning forged travel documents, as Kwon’s passport was revoked by South Korean authorities in September 2022. It is unclear if he was attempting to enter or leave Montenegro. Podgorica is the capital city of the nation.
Adzic indicated that he was waiting for an official confirmation of Kwon’s identity. South Korean News Network Yonhap reported that the South Korean National Police Agency had already “verified the age, nationality and name with the ID card” of the man arrested by the Montenegrin police and had confirmed his identity through photographic data. They are still waiting for fingerprint information from the Montenegrin authorities.
Kwon is the CEO of Terraform Labs, which designed the Terra blockchain. Terra imploded in May 2022 when the network’s algorithmic stablecoin, UST, lost its peg and went into a death spiral, removing more than $40 billion from the markets.
Refusing to cooperate with criminal investigations, Kwon fled South Korea for Singapore shortly after Terra’s collapse. Interpol issued a red notice for him in September, making him a wanted man in 195 countries. Despite the news, Kwon insisted that he was not “on the run” and maintained an active presence on Twitter. South Korean authorities claimed in December that Kwon was hiding in Serbia.
Kwon was reportedly traveling with an assistant named Han at the time of his arrest. According DL News, Serbian police were on Kwon’s trail and had already started pre-extradition proceedings. Therefore, he may have been trying to flee from the Serb authorities by entering Montenegro.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this article owned BTC, ETH, and various other crypto assets.
