'Tera Crash' Kwon Do-hyung, Will He Face Trial in Korea? (Comprehensive)

Montenegro Court Overturns Ruling

Kwon Do-hyung, the CEO of Terraform Labs (32), who was the main culprit behind the crash of virtual assets Terra and Luna and was scheduled to be extradited to the United States, now faces the possibility of being tried in Korea. This is because the Montenegrin court, which decided on Kwon's extradition country, overturned its previous ruling that he should be sent to the U.S. last month.

According to foreign media including the Associated Press on the 5th (local time), the Montenegrin Court of Appeal accepted Kwon's appeal and announced that it invalidated the Podgorica High Court's decision to extradite him to the U.S. and sent the case back to the original court.

The Court of Appeal pointed out procedural issues regarding which country, Korea or the U.S., made the request first. The High Court had decided on Kwon's extradition to the U.S. based on the fact that the official U.S. extradition request for Kwon arrived a day earlier, on March 27 of last year, than Korea's. However, the Court of Appeal found the High Court's ruling unjustified, noting that the Korean Ministry of Justice sent the extradition request for Kwon twice by email in English and Montenegrin on March 24 and again on March 26, two days later, last year.

Kwon fled Korea in April 2022 after the Terra and Luna crash, which caused estimated damages exceeding 50 trillion won to investors worldwide, and has been detained locally for a year since his arrest in Montenegro last March on charges of using a forged passport.

With the Montenegrin Court of Appeal sending the case back to the original court, the High Court must now decide Kwon's extradition country from scratch. Considering that Kwon is a Korean national, there is also analysis that the possibility of extradition to Korea is not insignificant. Kwon's local legal representative in Montenegro, lawyer Goran Rodic, also argued, "According to the laws on extradition and international treaties, he should be extradited to Korea." Han Chang-jun, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Terraform Labs who was arrested together at the time, was extradited to Korea last month and is currently on trial in custody.

Meanwhile, Jed Rakoff, a judge at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, who is hearing the civil lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Kwon, postponed the trial date from January to March considering the possibility of his extradition to the U.S. In response, Kwon's side recently informed the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that "at present, it is not expected that Kwon will be extradited to Korea or the U.S. before the end of March."