You can’t go on vacation when you have a lot of unfinished business! And even more so when these cases are open against you. Han Chang-joon clearly needed to learn about this golden rule. That’s why he went home to South Korea. And here are the details.
Life Sentence, Really?
The authorities of Montenegro have extradited the former CFO of Terraform Labs, Han Chang-joon, to South Korea. Local media reported this regarding representatives of the Ministry of Justice.
According to the media, Joon was extradited under an Interpol warrant. Here’s the citation from the statement:
Jang Joon has been handed over to the competent judicial and police authorities in South Korea to conduct criminal proceedings for several financial fraud offenses, which are punishable by a life sentence following local laws.
Sounds serious like hell!
Goran Rodic, the attorney for the convicted, commented to DL News that they are awaiting a decision regarding Do Kwon, the ex-CEO of Terraform Labs.
Do Kwon, alongside Chang Jung, was arrested at Podgorica airport in March 2023, and the court handed down a sentence of several months in prison for falsifying documents.
The U.S. authorities are also pursuing the extradition of Do Kwon. Although this decision was initially confirmed, it was revoked in December 2023. It has been indicated that Do Kwon’s legal team plans to challenge the verdict at the Supreme Court.
A Little Recollection
Almost a year ago, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Terraform Labs and its co-founder, Do Kwon. The SEC’s complaint also alleges that the company and Do Kwon personally “repeatedly misled investors” about the stability of UST, as well as during the promotion of the related LUNA token.
The regulator accused the firm and Kwon of “several billion dollars” in fraud involving the UST algorithmic stablecoin. The Commission calls the tokens “cryptocurrency securities.”
According to the complaint filed in the Southern District of New York, from April 2018 to May 2022, Terraform Labs promoted assets that fall under the securities law regulation. The company claimed that UST tokens would increase in value:
For example, they touted UST as a ‘lucrative’ stablecoin that yields up to 20% via the Anchor Protocol.
You know how the SEC usually doesn’t believe in cryptocurrencies, right? The same thing happened here. The Terra ecosystem was not decentralized, the regulator emphasized:
It was simply a fraud supported by a so-called algorithmic stablecoin whose price was controlled by the defendants, not the code.
As we all remember, in 2022, the Terra ecosystem collapsed. In May 2022, the UST lost its peg to the dollar, and the price of the asset and its associated tokens dropped to almost zero.
Kwon claimed that he had “nothing to hide” and was not hiding.
The downfall of Terra was like dropping a crypto bomb (this isn’t an Oppenheimer reference) in the crypto world. Not only did it blow up investors’ portfolios, but it also sent a shockwave of mistrust. Well, at least fraudsters got cuffed for now!
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