Do Kwon Receives 4 Months in Montenegro Prison on Forged Passport Charges
- Terraform Labs’ founder Do Kwon and CFO Han Chang-Joon were found guilty and sentenced to four months in prison for their use of forged Costa Rican passports.
- The Basic Court in the country’s capital Podgorica clarified that the time both individuals spent under detention in the country will also be taken into account.
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Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon has been sentenced to four months in prison after a court in Montenegro found him guilty of using a forged passport, the Montenegro Basic Court said on its website on 19 June.
According to the announcement, Do Kwon and Terraform Labs’ chief financial officer Han Chang-Joon — who was arrested alongside Kwon in March — were both sentenced to four months in jail for their use of forged documents by the Basic Court in the country’s capital Podgorica. The court added that the time both individuals spent under detention in the country will be taken into account.
The court added that it had confiscated several identity documents that belonged to the two individuals as part of its verdict, including two Costa Rican passports, two Belgian passports, and two identity cards.
Kwon and Han were detained at the airport in Podgorica back on 23 March, and charged with attempting to leave the country using the already mentioned forged Costa Rican passports. Do Kwon reportedly pleaded not guilty of the crime on Friday, claiming that he was unaware that the passport he was traveling with was forged, and that he received all his travel documents from a third-party agencies.
Prior to his arrest in Montenegro, Do Kwon had been accused of violating South Korea’s Capital Markets Act, and authorities in the country had already issued an arrest warrant for Kwon. Both Korean and U.S. authorities have requested the extradition of Kwon so he can face criminal charges for his involvement in the collapse of the Terra ecosystem in May 2022.
- Blockchain network Terra said its website was compromised by hackers over the weekend, and warned users against ongoing phishing scams.
- The platform later froze its website to prevent the hackers from exploiting it, and reminded users to avoid websites with the terra.money domain for now.
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- A district court in South Korea ruled that the token was not a security, noting that it was “difficult to see LUNA as financial investment product regulated by the Capital Markets Act”.
- Using this decision, the court dismissed the prosecution’s request to confiscate properties owned by Terraform Labs’ co-founder Hyun-seung Shin.
- The now arrested Terraform Labs CEO had reportedly converted the majority of his illicit funds into BTC using foreign exchanged not under the jurisdiction of South Korea.
- While none of the assets tied to Do Kwon were recoverable, South Korean authorities continue to seize assets and properties tied to other executives of Terra.