Montenegro Approves Do Kwon’s Extradition To The US
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It has been around 18 months since Do Kwon, the co-founder and former CEO of Singapore-based Tarraform Labs, was arrested in Montenegro after being caught trying to leave the country with a fake passport.
Now, the Montenegro Minister of Justice, Bojan Božović, approved the entrepreneur’s extradition to the United States, following the Constitutional Court’s dismissal of Kwon’s appeal against the decision.
The ruling came after Montenegro received extradition requests from both the US and South Korea, with the US finally securing the extradition. Montenegro’s Ministry of Justice decided to reject the South Korean request to have Do Kwon face charges in his home country.
The reason behind the decision is simply that the US met the majority of legal criteria necessary to secure the extradition deal.
The Complex Process Of Choosing Who Gets Do Kwon
The procedure was long and complex, with multiple reversals since the legal proceedings initially started. Both US and South Korean prosecutors sought to bring the alleged criminal into their jurisdiction and have him face charges tied to the collapse of his company, Terraform Labs.
The firm’s collapse erased billions of dollars in crypto value, impacting investors from all over the world, and causing massive ripples that ended up affecting the entire crypto market. The High Court of Podgorica initially approved the extradition all the way back in November 2023.
However, it ended up deferring the decision on the receiving country to Montenegro’s Justice Ministry. Then, in May of this year, Do Kwon’s defense team appealed the decision, which pushed the matter into the hands of the highest court in the country.
The Appellate Court ended up upholding the initial ruling in August 2024, which favored extradition to South Korea. In the absence of an appeal, the decision was supposed to be expedited, but things took a turn in September 2024, when the matter got referred back to the justice minister who was supposed to make the final decision.
The decision was eventually made on October 17 but was temporarily delayed, due to a pending appeal from Kwon’s legal team. The Constitutional Court eventually dismissed the appeal, and so Montenegro’s justice ministry finally approved the extradition to the US, which will prosecute South Korean native for various charges.
Among them are market manipulation, securities fraud, and likely more, all linked to the TerraUSD stablecoin and the LUNA cryptocurrency.
