Key points to remember
- Montenegrin police apprehended a person suspected of being Do Kwon.
- South Korean authorities have provided visual confirmation but are awaiting fingerprint information.
- Kwon was arrested at Podgorica airport with false documents.
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Terra leader Do Kwon was apprehended at Podgorica airport by Montenegrin police. It was previously believed that he was hiding in Serbia.
Six months on the run
The law finally caught up with Do Kwon.
Interior Minister of Montenegro Filip Adzic tweeted today that the Montenegrin police apprehended a person suspected of being the leader of Terra Do Kwon.
Adzic claimed that Kwon was detained at Podgorica airport with “falsified documents” – potentially meaning false travel documents, as Kwon’s passport was revoked by South Korean authorities in September 2022. It is unclear not if he was trying to enter or leave Montenegro. Podgorica is the capital of the country.
Adzic said he was awaiting official confirmation of Kwon’s identity. South Korean Yonhap News Network reported that the South Korean National Police Agency had already “verified the age, nationality and name with the identity card” of the man arrested by the Montenegrin police and confirmed his identity via photographic data. They are still awaiting 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 entered a death spiral, wiping out over $40 billion from the markets.
Refusing to cooperate with criminal investigations, Kwon fled South Korea to Singapore shortly after Terra’s collapse. Interpol issued a red notice against him in September, making him wanted in 195 countries. Despite the news, Kwon insisted 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 is said to have been traveling with an aide named Han at the time of his arrest. According DL News, the Serbian police were on the trail of Kwon and had already started a pre-extradition procedure. He may therefore have tried to flee the Serbian authorities by entering Montenegro.
Disclosure: At the time of writing this article, the author of this article owned BTC, ETH, and several other crypto assets.