The head of the South Korean “cryptocrash” Do Kwon has been extradited to the United States

South Korean cryptocurrency entrepreneur Do Kwon will be extradited to the United States from Montenegro in connection with the collapse of two digital tokens – TerraUSD and Luna tokens.

For months, the US and South Korea have sought Kwon’s extradition, alleging fraud led to the bankruptcy of the company behind the tokens, which have sunk around $40bn (£31.7bn) from investors and rocked global crypto markets.

Montenegro has no extradition treaties with the US or South Korea, so the case had to be settled in the courts.

The decision marks the end of more than 18 months of rulings and reversals.

“Minister of Justice Bojan Bojevich decided to extradite the accused Kwon Do Hyun to the United States of America,” the Ministry of Justice said.

“It was concluded that most of the statutory criteria favor an extradition request by the competent authorities of the United States of America,” it said.

He added that Kwon had agreed to be extradited to South Korea and the United States.

In February, US regulators accused Kwon and his company, Terraform Labs, of “orchestrating a multi-billion-dollar crypto-asset securities fraud scheme.”

“We allege that Terraform and Do Kwon failed to provide the public with full, fair and truthful disclosures as required for many crypto-asset securities, most notably Luna and TerraUSD,” the chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC) Gary Gensler said in a statement at the time.

The US alleged that Kwon repeatedly claimed the tokens would rise in value and misled investors about the stability of TerraUSD.

Despite billions of investments, in May 2022, TerraUSD and Luna went into a death spiral.

This triggered a selloff in other major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin.

In September 2022, Interpol issued a “red notice” warrant for Kwon’s arrest. He was in Singapore before his business collapsed and fled to Serbia before being picked up in Montenegro.

Kwon was arrested in March 2023 as he tried to board a flight to Dubai at Podgorica Airport in the Montenegrin capital.

In June 2023, he was sentenced to four months in prison in Montenegro, having been found guilty of forging official documents.

Former Terraform Labs financial officer Hong Chang-jun was extradited to South Korea in February after serving four months in prison in Montenegro on fraud charges.