Interpol has asked law enforcement agencies around the globe to locate and temporarily arrest Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon and his associates in South Korea. They are seeking to detain these people for prosecution for their alleged involvement in the massively damaging collapse of the Terra-LUNA stablecoin project.
The release of the Red Wanted Order was confirmed on Monday by Choi Sung-kook, a prosecutor working for the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor’s Office, which oversees the Terra-LUNA investigation. Choi said the warrant was also issued to Kwon’s associates at Terraform.
The move comes as South Korea is trying to put Kwon on trial amid intense global scrutiny over the Terra-LUNA incident, which by some estimates cost investors $ 40 billion in assets.
An arrest warrant for the Terraform founder was issued on September 14 for violating the nation’s Capital Markets Act. South Korean prosecutors have also asked the Foreign Ministry to cancel Kwon’s passport. However, a question arises that it is not known whether Kwon owns a passport provided by another country.
The Seoul Southern District Prosecutor’s Office can also charge a suspected fraud charge against a member of the group. In July, authorities searched and seized evidence by examining 15 companies, including 7 cryptocurrency exchanges as part of an investigation into the Terra-LUNA incident.
While the prosecutor’s office declined to identify Kwon’s 5 associates at Terraform, local media reports said Terra’s founding member was Nicholas Platias and the CEO of CHAI Corporation, whose last name was Han. CHAI was founded by another Terra co-founder, Daniel Shin.
The arrest warrant was publicly released on September 14 on the basis that Kwon and his affiliates violated local capital market laws — prosecutors treated Terra’s tokens and decentralized financial services (DeFi) as financial investment contracts.
Koo Tae-on, a lawyer at South Korea-based law firm Lin, said in an earlier interview: “If they are treated as securities, it will be easier to prosecute because issuing unregistered securities is a violation of the capital market.”
See also: Red Notice! South Korea Asks Interpol to Issue Red Notice for Do Kwon
