The South Korean co-founder of Terraform Labs, Do Hyeong Kwon, has appeared in a New York court on Thursday, January 2, 2025 to face fraud charges stemming from the multi-billion-dollar collapse of his cryptocurrency company, following his extradition to the United States from Montenegro on Tuesday.
The former chief executive of Terraform, is accused of deceiving investors to fraudulently inflate the value of his firm’s cryptocurrencies.
In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Do Hyeong Kwon will now be held accountable in an American courtroom for… his elaborate schemes involving Terraform’s cryptocurrencies, which resulted in over $40 billion in investor losses”.
U.S. Attorney Daniel Gitner said the May 2022 crash of Terraform’s cryptocurrencies “erased over $40 billion in investor assets, causing devastating losses to countless investors in the United States and around the world.”
Kwon, who is also wanted in South Korea, is charged in the United States with commodities fraud, securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering and faces up to 130 years in prison if convicted of all charges.
The crypto tycoon was arrested in March 2023 at an airport in Podgorica, the Montenegrin capital, while preparing to board a flight to Dubai, in possession of a fake Costa Rican passport.
Before his arrest in the tiny Balkan nation, he had been on the run for months, fleeing South Korea and later Singapore.
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