Do Kwon set to be released after Montenegro court accepts $436,000 bail: local press

Quick Take

  • Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon is set to be freed from jail pending trial after a court agreed to a €400,000 ($436,000) bail, according to a report in Montenegro news site Pobjeda. 
  • He was arrested in March and charged with attempting to leave Montenegro on a false passport.

Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon is set to be freed from jail pending trial after a court in Montenegro accepted a €400,000 ($436,000) bail, according to a report in local news site Pobjeda. 

Kwon was arrested in Montenegro in March and charged with using a fake passport to attempt to leave the country. The country's interior ministry says Kwon and fellow South Korean national Han Chang-joon, Terraform's former chief financial officer, attempted to board a private flight to Dubai with false Costa Rican travel documents.  

The court also agreed to release Han on a €400,000 bond, according to Pobjeda. The prosecution has three days to appeal the decision. 

TerraUSD, the stablecoin created by Terraform Labs and often known by its ticker, UST, collapsed a year ago this week — wiping out tens of billions of dollars for investors. The crisis was the first of many to hit crypto markets over the course of 2022, including the bankruptcies of crypto lender Celsius and exchange giant FTX. 

Do Kwon wanted in Korea

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Kwon also faces legal difficulties in Korea and the U.S. stemming from TerraUSD's collapse. 

A South Korean court issued an arrest warrant for Kwon in September, saying he breached capital markets laws. Korean prosecutors had reportedly traveled to Serbia, which borders Montenegro, in February to try to track him down.

In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission has also brought civil charges against Kwon, accusing the executive of failing to "provide the public with full, fair and truthful disclosure as required for a host of crypto asset securities."

Update: story updated with details of Korean arrest warrant and SEC charges. 


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Andrew Rummer is executive editor for The Block Pro, based in London. He was previously managing editor at Bloomberg News and led special projects at Finimize. He has a degree in engineering from the University of Oxford. Follow him on Twitter at @AJRummer.

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