Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon retained a law firm in South Korea ahead of the Terra ecosystem’s collapse, according to a Monday report from Bloomberg.
The report, citing local media outlet KBS News, found that Kwon had made a payment of 9 billion won, worth around $7 million, to the law firm Kim & Chang. South Korean prosecutors told Bloomberg that the report “isn’t false” via text message.
Meanwhile, the law firm in question said it was unable to provide specifics on individual cases, but disclosed that it had conducted legal advisory services and legitimately received a fee for doing so.
Kwon was arrested in Montenegro last month and remains in custody in the country’s capital city Podgorica. The Terra founder faces charges both in the U.S. and South Korea, both of which have put in requests for his extradition.
Many believe that South Korea is likely to be granted priority in Kwon’s extradition. In the event that Kwon is extradited to the U.S. instead, he stands to face a much harsher sentence than he would in South Korea.
Do Kwon could face 100 years in prison in the US and 40 years in S.Korea.
— WF (@WhaleFUD) April 4, 2023
South Korean prosecutors haven’t let up on their efforts to crack down on the Terraform Labs empire, recently seizing assets from several executives associated with the firm who still reside in the country.
The prosecutors estimated that the criminal proceeds associated with Terra’s actions amount to $314 million. However, they haven’t been able to seize any of Kwon’s assets in South Korea on account of his converting all of them to cryptocurrency. The authorities believe that he holds these assets on an overseas crypto exchange and have asked Binance to block withdrawal attempts from this account.
