Montenegro Court Approves Extradition Of Terra Co-Founder Do Kwon To South Korea Or US

The saga of Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon continues to unravel with a court in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, approving his extradition — though the Montenegrin Minister of Justice will make the final decision on whether he will be extradited to South Korea or the United States.

Montenegro Ready To Extradite Do Kwon

Do Kwon may soon be extradited to the U.S. or South Korea.

According to an official statement posted on the Courts of Montenegro website, Kwon’s extradition will proceed pending a final decision by the country’s Justice Minister Andrej Milović, who will decide which country has priority. However, Kwon will first serve his four-month sentence in Montenegro for document falsification before he can be extradited.

The former Terraform Labs CEO has found himself in a jurisdictional turf of war between his home country, South Korea and the U.S. in the aftermath of his detention in Montenegro in March this year for attempting to travel to Dubai using a forged passport.

Kwon is under indictment after the implosion of the Terra ecosystem last May, an event that thrust the digital asset market firmly into a chilly crypto winter and played a major role in the failure of several crypto-focused hedge funds, such as Three Arrows Capital.

Speaking during a TV show Thursday, Minister Milović said the decision on the country Kwon will be extradited to is political and could take some time.

“The USA is our main foreign policy partner, we want to sign a bilateral extradition agreement as soon as possible, in order to create a legal framework for future extraditions,” Milović added.

South Korean prosecutors have contended that the fallen crypto star should face prosecution in his native country, where Terraform Labs was headquartered, and authorities have been targeting his accomplices. But Kwon has also been charged with eight counts of fraud by U.S. prosecutors in New York, besides facing a civil suit lodged by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Kwon’s legal team asked the court to throw out the lawsuit on the grounds that TerraUSD (UST) is a currency and not a security, as the regulator claims. Further, they said the lawsuit is an unacceptable attempt by the SEC to regulate crypto assets using out-of-date laws, even though the Commission itself can’t agree on what qualifies as a “security.”

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