The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) plans to continue its pursuit of taking former Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon to trial in the country.
The DOJ told Bloomberg on Thursday that it will continue to seek Kwon’s extradition in accordance with relevant international and bilateral agreements and Montenegrin law.
“The United States appreciates the cooperation of the Montenegrin authorities in ensuring that all individuals are subject to the rule of law,” said a spokesperson from the DOJ.
The statement comes after the Montenegro High Court ruled that Kwon be extradited to his native country South Korea, where he faces charges criminal charges for breaching capital markets law related to the $40 billion implosion of the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin.
Both South Korea and the US placed extradition requests for Kwon shortly after he was arrested in Montenegro last March. Kwon, and his accomplice, former Terraform Labs’ CFO Han Chang Joon, were taken into custody after officials discovered them trying to leave Podgorica airport for Dubai with falsified travel documents.
Kwon’s extradition to South Korea is still yet to be signed off on by Andrej Milović, the Minister of Justice of Montenegro, according to a report from South Korean media.
This is the latest development in the extradition saga for Kwon, which initially favoured the US. Kwon appealed and won a request that prevented his extradition to the US in February, with The Court of Appeals in Montenegro ruling that there had been “significant violations” of certain provisions in the Criminal Procedure Code in the initial ruling.
It is likely that Kwon will face a harsher penalty if he is put on trial in the US, where former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was just found guilty of multiple charges of fraud. Analysis from legal experts following Bankman-Fried’s trial suggests that he could face several decades in prison as US prosecutors look to make an example of his case in preventing crypto-related fraud.
