The co-founder of bankrupt cryptocurrency operator Terraform Labs broke his silence after Interpol issued a red warning against him, saying he is not in hiding despite a growing global manhunt.
Do Kwon remains active on social media as the threat of arrest looms over him in South Korea. He wrote on Twitter on Monday (26) that he is making “no effort to hide. I go for walks and shopping”, implying that there has been no change in his routine.
“I’m writing code in my living room,” he said, adding that he hadn’t seen his name on the Interpol red list. “For something that has ‘warning’ in the name, it sure as hell doesn’t,” he said.
Not all names on the red list are publicly available. Kwon left for Singapore in late April, ahead of the $40 billion implosion of TerraUSD and Luna tokens in May, according to South Korean prosecutors investigating the case.
Kwon showed his location as Singapore on his Twitter account on Monday, but his whereabouts remain unclear after local police this month said he was not in the city-state.
South Korean prosecutors did not say whether they discovered Kwon’s whereabouts. “Locating and arresting someone is complicated. The situation changes all the time. We are doing our best to catch him,” the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor’s Office said on Tuesday (27).
Experts said it could only be a matter of time before Kwon’s arrest and extradition to his home country, as law enforcement agencies around the world are cooperating to track him down and arrest him. Kwon and five of his associates are accused by South Korean courts of financial fraud and violation of South Korean capital market laws.
Prosecutors also asked the Seoul Foreign Ministry to cancel Kwon’s South Korean passport, as he had previously told police, through his lawyer, that he did not intend to appear for questioning.
The collapse of the TerraUSD and Luna currencies affected hundreds of thousands of investors, many of whom were lured by a scheme in which clients could borrow their capital in land for a 20% yield.
Kwon faces class action lawsuits in South Korea and the US for allegedly deceiving investors. The US Securities and Exchange Commission and South Korean prosecutors are scrutinizing Terraform Labs’ marketing tactics amid allegations that Kwon and his company may have misled investors by labeling TerraUSD a “stablecoin”.
“Prosecutors want to punish him as an example, but it is another question whether he will actually be found guilty in court,” said Kim Hyoung-joong, head of the Cryptocurrency Research Center at Korea University. “There is no legal precedent in South Korea where investments in cryptocurrencies would be considered an investment contract, as claimed by the promoters.”
Terraform management has denied any fraud or violation of financial regulations.
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