Terra founder, Do Kwon, denies being “on the run”

Terra founder, Do Kwon, denies being “on the run”
Source: Woohae Cho/Bloomberg

Early this year, Terraform Labs completely collapsed, with the cryptocurrency ecosystem losing US$40 billion worth of investors’ money, crumbling the crypto coins Terra and Luna. This collapse contributed to a loss of faith in digital assets – especially the stability of so-called “stablecoins." Then, five South Korean investors accused Terra’s founder, Do Kwon, of fraud. Currently, he’s being investigated by South Korea and the US SEC. While the company was based in Singapore, Kwon is from South Korea. But, he was believed to be in Singapore somewhere.

Last Wednesday, South Korea issued an arrest warrant for Kwon. He and five others are accused of violating the country’s capital markets law. But Kwon is … nowhere to be found. Although Singapore police say he’s no longer there, Kwon responded that he’s “not on the run." But, Korean prosecutors don’t seem to be buying that, saying he’s “obviously on the run" and intended to flee the country before Luna’s collapse. According to them, ​​he’s not cooperating with probes, and his attorney said he has no intention to show up for questioning. On top of his arrest, Kwon could be seeing his employment permit renewal, which expires in December, at risk in Singapore.

Key comments:

“For any government agency that has shown interest to communicate, we are in full cooperation and we don’t have anything to hide. We are in the process of defending ourselves in multiple jurisdictions – we have held ourselves to an extremely high bar of integrity, and look forward to clarifying the truth over the next few months," Kwon tweeted without providing a location.

“SPF will assist the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) within the ambit of our domestic legislation and international obligations," the Singapore Police Force said in a statement.

“Currently, we are in the process to locate the whereabouts of suspect Do Kwon and apprehend him," a prosecution official said.