Interpol seeks arrest of failed crypto-firm boss Do Kwon
Interpol has asked law enforcement agencies worldwide to find and arrest Do Kwon, founder of the failed cryptocurrency Terra.
BBC Korean says a red notice has been issued for the 31-year-old, who is accused of fraud over the company’s $40 billion collapse.
An arrest warrant was issued in his native South Korea earlier this month.
Do Kwon flew to Singapore in May – before Terra crashed – but the authorities say he’s no longer there.
South Korean prosecutors had asked Interpol to place him on the red notice list – a request it has now complied with – and asked the foreign ministry in Seoul to revoke his passport, saying that Do Kwon was “on the run”.
He has denied that he is in hiding, but has not revealed his whereabouts.
I am not “on the run” or anything similar – for any government agency that has shown interest to communicate, we are in full cooperation and we don’t have anything to hide
— Do Kwon ???? (@stablekwon) September 17, 2022
Prosecutors have also issued arrest warrants for five other people – who have not been named – linked to the so-called stablecoin Terra and its sister token Luna.
Stablecoins are designed to have a relatively fixed price and are usually pegged to a real-world commodity or currency – but Terra’s value collapsed during this year’s wider cryptocurrency crash.
The Terra Luna system collapsed in May, with the price of both tokens plummeting to near zero, and the fallout hitting the wider crypto-market.
From a $116 high in April, a Terra coin is now worth less than $0.0002.
Globally, investors in the two coins lost an estimated $42 billion, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.
Some investors lost their life savings, and South Korean authorities have opened several criminal probes into the crash.
