Montenegro says detains cryptocurrency fugitive
Montenegro officials on Thursday arrested a man suspected of being the fugitive South Korean cryptocurrency entrepreneur Do Kwon, the interior minister said on social media. "Montenegrin police have detained a person suspected of being one of the most wanted fugitives, South Korean citizen Do Kwon, co-founder and CEO of Singapore-based Terraform Labs," Interior Minister Filip Adzic wrote on Twitter. The minister said the suspect had been arrested at Montenegro's airport in the capital Podgorica where he was carrying "falsified documents". "We are waiting for official confirmation of identity," Adzic added. Kwon was the co-founder of Terraform Labs and stands accused of "orchestrating a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud", according to US Securities and Exchange Commission. The collapse of Terraform Labs last year wiped out about US$40 billion of investors' money and shook global crypto markets. South Korean prosecutors previously asked Interpol to issue a red notice for Kwon, saying he refused to cooperate with their probe into the crash. Kwon's Terra/Luna system disintegrated in May last year, with the price of both tokens plummeting to near zero. The fallout hit the wider crypto market. Stablecoins are designed to have a relatively fixed price and are usually pegged to a real-world commodity or currency. Many investors lost their life savings when Luna and Terra entered a death spiral, and South Korean authorities had opened multiple criminal probes into the crash. (AFP)