With Sam Bankman-Fried in the slammer, now the fugitive crypto 'Lunatic' behind 2022's $40B crash is being extradited from his Montenegrin getaway
Do Kwon, former crypto darling and now fugitive, was arrested in Montenegro this March while attempting to flee to Dubai. The High Court in Podgorica, the Montenegrin capital, has now given approval for Do Kwon's extradition, though whether he'll be off to South Korea or the US, both of which have open arrest warrants for him, remains to be decided.
Do Kwon was the main player and public face of the TerraUSD stablecoin and the self-described «Lunatic» driving the Luna cryptocurrency. You can probably tell where this is going. The more-or-less overnight collapse of both caused a loss of around $40 billion on crypto markets and was the major factor behind the 2022 catastrophe-slash-contagion that saw FTX go under, with its founder Sam Bankman-Fried now facing a lengthy jail sentence, and a multitude of other crypto firms go bust.
The one-time crypto baron did what all innocent people do in such a situation, and fled to a country that has no extradition treaty with the US or South Korea, while publicly declaring he wasn't on the run. Sadly for Do Kwon, the High Court has «determined that the legal requirements for the extradition of the accused KDH have been met, at the request of South Korea and the United States of America.»
Even now he's trying to angle it. Do Kwon has consented to being extradited to South Korea (he is originally from Seoul) under a shortened process rather than face being sent to the US. The decision on his destination rests with Montenegro's minister of justice Marko Kovač, who has not commented on the current ruling but said on Do Kwon's arrest that «determining which state they will be extradited to will be based on several factors.»
Do Kwon had entered Montenegro using a faked passport, after
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