Do Kwon could serve prison in both US and South Korea, prosecutor says

Do Kwon, co-founder and CEO of Terraform Labs, could face multiple sentences in both the United States and South Korea, according to a South Korean prosecutor in charge of the investigation.

Kwon was granted a house bail proposal by a Montenegro court on June 5th and is now obliged to stay at Han Chang-Joon’s legal residence in Montenegro until a decision about extradition is reached.

When talking to Bloomberg, Dan Sunghan stated that extradition of Kwon to South Korea was more beneficial in terms of bringing justice and compensating the victims.

Sunghan asserted that the majority of the initial research regarding the Terra ecosystem’s collapse was conducted in South Korea, and further maintained that local authorities possess more evidence than their American counterparts.

Sunghan emphasized that South Korean authorities have already charged several of Kwon’s accomplices.

When questioned about the likelihood of Kwon having to stand trial in both the United States and South Korea, Sunghan stated that “such a scenario is a possibility”. He further clarified that when a person is convicted of a crime that has not yet been prosecuted in one of the countries, they may be subject to multiple cross-border sentences.

Sunghan warned that if the South Korean authorities do not take into consideration all of the offences Kwon is accused of in the U.S., then the businessperson might be extradited to the U.S. for trial after serving his sentence in South Korea, which could be up to 40 years.

The prosecutor anticipates that Kwon will receive “the most severe punishment ever imposed in South Korea”. The whereabouts of Kwon’s cold wallet, thought to contain 10,000 Bitcoin (BTC), remain unknown.

Sunghan affirmed that the authorities are able to observe money being transferred from the wallet in question. Nevertheless, the whereabouts of the wallet and the method used to take out the funds stay a secret.

Sunghan declared that this is the greatest financial fraud or financial securities fraud case that has ever occurred in South Korea.

On March 23, Montenegro authorities apprehended Kwon for attempting to depart the nation with false papers. Subsequently, the U.S. and South Korean governments made applications for his extradition to their respective countries. Dan Sunghan, a South Korean prosecutor, indicated that the processing of some extradition requests can take up to nine months.

South Korea has enacted legislation requiring public officials to reveal their Bitcoin holdings.

South Korean officials have begun to analyze Binance’s acquisitions in the nation following the crypto exchange’s legal dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Financial Service Committee of South Korea is reportedly examining Binance’s takeover of the domestic cryptocurrency exchange Gopax, according to a local source.

In its review of the Gopax deal, the FSC noted that due to Binance’s alleged securities law violations and requests from the SEC to freeze Binance.US assets, it is challenging to accept the acquisition request at this time.