Terraform creator Do Kwon will be extradited to the US, Montenegrin Justice Minister Bojan Božović said on Friday.
Both the US and South Korean governments have sought custody of Kwon to face criminal charges related to the collapse of the algorithmic stablecoin Terra/Luna system in 2022, which began a series of high-profile collapses including FTX.
Kwon, who? arrested in Montenegro in March of 2023 and sentenced to several months in prison on passport forgery charges, has been fighting his extradition to the US for more than a year. Various courts in the country have ruled in favor of US or South Korean custody of the one-time crypto executive.
In his statement on Friday, Božović said his decision followed a ruling by the country’s Supreme Court that the conditions for approving the extradition had been met.
“Keeping in mind the judgment of the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Justice considered all the facts and circumstances and assessed criteria such as the gravity of the criminal acts, the place of execution, the order of submission of the request, the citizenship of the requested person, the possibility of further extradition to another country, as well as other circumstances,” the statement said.
The US bid met these criteria, the statement said.
Friday’s announcement was just the latest in a series of back-and-forth decisions about where Kwon should be sent. The Appellate Court of Montenegro ruled in August this year that Kwon should go to South Korea.
The legal fallout for Terra also continues in the US; last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission fixed charges with Tai Mo Shan, a subsidiary of Jump Crypto, claiming that Tai Mo Shan sold LUNA as a security. The company will pay $123 million as part of the settlement.
Editor’s note: The Montenegrin government’s statement has been translated into English.
