Terra Co-Founder Do Kwon’s Extradition Approved by Montenegro Court

Terra founder Do Kwon’s extradition has been approved by a court in Montenegro’s capital Podgorica—though a final decision has yet to be made on whether he will be extradited to the U.S. or South Korea.

According to an update posted on the Courts of Montenegro website, Kwon’s extradition will proceed pending a final decision by the country’s Minister of Justice, who will decide which country has priority. Prior to his extradition, Do Kwon will first serve his four-month sentence in Montenegro for document forgery.

Do Kwon has been caught in a jurisdictional battle between his native South Korea and the United States, following his arrest in Montenegro for attempting to travel on a fake passport earlier this year.

The Terra co-founder is under indictment following the 2022 collapse of Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD (TUSD) and its native cryptocurrency Luna, which wiped nearly $40 billion from the crypto market and sparked off a months-long bear market.

South Korean investigators have argued that with key evidence and accomplices relating to the case based there, Do Kwon should be tried in his home country. But Kwon also faces criminal fraud charges in the U.S. alongside a civil lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Do Kwon’s lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss the SEC’s suit, arguing that TUSD is a currency rather than a security, and accusing the SEC of an “improper assertion of power” by attempting to “shoehorn all cryptocurrencies into its definition of a ‘security’.”