Montenegro court extends custody of Terra's Do Kwon

A Montenegro court has extended the custody of Terra founder Do Kwon by two more months, while South Korea and the U.S. remain seeking his extradition.

Marija Rakovic, a spokesperson for the country’s Higher Court in the capital Podgorica, confirmed in a commentary to AFP that Kwon Do-hyung‘s extradition custody has been “expanded by two months,” Barron’s reports.

It is still unclear to which country the disgraced crypto entrepreneur would be deported to.

The United States requested the extradition of Do Kwon from Montenegro in early December 2023, accusing him of fraud and market manipulation in connection with the collapse of TerraUSD, an algorithmic stablecoin which lost its peg to the U.S. dollar in 2022.

South Korean authorities also allege that Kwon engaged in fraudulent and manipulative activities in connection with the collapse of TerraUSD. They claim that he misled investors about the stability of the stablecoin and that he orchestrated its collapse to profit from the resulting market chaos.

The final decision rests with Montenegro’s Minister for Justice, Andrej Milovic, who has communicated his plans to surrender Kwon to American authorities to a few officials. Per the Wall Street Journal, Milovic has also informed the U.S. ambassador about the upcoming move.

According to ious calculations, the collapse of TerraUSD wiped out an estimated $40 billion of investors’ money and sent shockwaves through the global cryptocurrency market.

As crypto.news reported, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Kwon for selling unregistered securities in TerraUSD and for misleading investors in marketing materials about the stability and security of the algorithmic stablecoin.