US charges fugitive crypto exec Do Kwon with eight counts of fraud

Do Kwon, the founder of Terraform Labs and creator of the collapsed stablecoin Terra, has been charged with eight counts of fraud by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, including “wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, and conspiracy to defraud and engage in market manipulation,” according to The New York Times. Prosecutors have told the media that they will seek Kwon’s extradition.

The charges follow his apparent arrest in Montenegro on Thursday, which was first reported through social media posts by Montenegro Minister of the Interior Filip Adzic on Twitter (where he’s unverified, whether by Twitter Blue or legacy means), and on Facebook (where he is verified, but Facebook’s blue checks have been wrong before).

Yonhap News in Korea reports South Korean national police are waiting for fingerprint confirmation that the person arrested is actually Do Kwon.

Last year, the collapse of the Terra / Luna algorithmic stablecoin ecosystem was one of the early events in the industry’s slide, which the SEC alleges constituted a massive fraud that evaporated over $40 billion in value. There were reports Interpol issued a “red notice” for Kwon, as prosecutors in the US and South Korea sought to have him arrested despite Kwon’s tweets claiming “I am not ‘on the run’ or anything similar.”

According to Yonhap News, Korean police made a statement about the arrest, saying, “We 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.”

Update March 23rd, 8:31PM ET: Kwon has been charged with fraud by federal prosecutors.