A person suspected to be the founder of Terra/Luna algorithmic stablecoin that lost its peg and tumbled to zero in May 2022 has been arrested at an airport in Podgorica, Montenegro’s capital city. Do Kwon was reported to travel with falsified documents, despite his numerous previous claims that he was not on the run.
“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,” the country’s interior minister Filip Adzic tweeted on March 23, adding that they are waiting for official confirmation of Kwon’s identity.
Months after Terra/Luna dramatic collapse, South Korean authorities issued an arrest warrant for the crypto fugitive, charging him with violating the country’s capital markets act. Shortly after, Interpol issued a red notice to locate and detain Kwon, making him a wanted criminal worldwide. Kwon’s South Korean passport was revoked in October 2022, but at the time Terraform Labs CEO claimed that he didn’t use it anyway, prompting speculations that he may hold other valid travel documents.
According to the National Police Agency, quoted by the Korean news outlet Yonhap, the authorities “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.” Do Kwon was reported to travel with an aide named Han, who was arrested as well.
In February, two South Korean officials traveled to Serbia to request cooperation from the local law enforcement agencies to arrest Do Kwon, whom they believed to reside in the country. Montenegro is a small Balkan state that borders with Serbia.
Later the same month, the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil fraud lawsuit against Do Kwon for orchestrating a multi-billion dollar "crypto asset securities fraud," alleging that both TerraUSD stablecoin and its sister coin Luna were unregistered securities.
