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South Korea cancels passport of Terraform Lab's Do Kwon
Whereabouts of wanted cryptobro unknown, but he's reliably on Twitter
South Korea issued a publicly available notice on Wednesday to wanted man and Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon, demanding he return his passport.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs disclosure [PDF] said that officials were unable to serve the notice to Kwon so had confirmed on its website that it was invalidating his passport and requesting its return within 14 days. The ministry also said attempts to have the passport reissued could be rejected.
Kwon is under an Interpol red notice, an order for international law enforcement to find and arrest a wanted man.
In mid-September, South Korea issued a warrant for his arrest, alleging he violated the nation's capital market law.
The warrant followed the $40 billion collapse of his company's "stablecoin" TerraUSD and similar Luna tokens that set off what has been called a "crypto winter." The crash was marketed as impossible because the cryptocurrency value was pegged to the US dollar. However, this proved untrue and investors lost out.
- Arrest warrant issued for Do Kwon – the man blamed for 'crypto winter'
- Singapore struggles to curb cryptocurrency enthusiasm
- Interpol seeks Do Kwon, man blamed for $40b crypto implosion
- Infusion of $3.5bn not enough to revive Terra's 'stablecoin'
Kwon, who resided in Singapore, removed himself from the city-state, according to the island nation's police. In response to media reports, the crypto-bro took to tweeting irreverently, a habit he's well known for, and fell back on Wednesday as his name hit the news again.
This time, he tweeted to deny a report that South Korea had frozen $39.6 million of his crypto.
He then insinuated that the Korean government is corrupt.
It's no surprise that crypto is most popular in countries that weaponize state institutions against their own people for political gain.
— Do Kwon 🌕 (@stablekwon) October 5, 2022
Reap what you sow - revolutions start from within.
Although his whereabouts remain unknown, Kwon has also denied that he is "on the run."
According to media reports, South Korean prosecutors have made their first arrest associated with the Terra-Luna collapse, Terra's head of general affairs. The employee was reportedly arrested under charges of violating the capital markets act, fraud and breach of duty.
The person, who is named only as "Yoo" and rumored to be part of Kwon's inner circle, is reportedly also accused of using bot programming to inflate and manipulate the market price of the company's cryptocurrency. South Korean politicians have reportedly called for a special prosecutor for the case.
Financial Services Commission chairman Kim Joo-hyun said in parliament on Thursday that the body will pursue improved regulations for cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. ®