KEY POINTS

  • South Korean authorities released an arrest warrant against Kwon this month
  • They also sought the help of Interpol to locate and provisionally arrest Kwon
  • To this day, South Korean authorities have no idea of Kwon's whereabouts

South Korean prosecutors have said that the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) has issued a red notice for the Terraform Labs CEO and co-founder Do Kwon.

In an interesting turn of events, South Korean authorities said that Interpol included Kwon on its red notice list on the charges filed against him in his home country in connection to the specular collapse of the cryptocurrencies TerraUSD and LUNA he created that wiped out approximately $60 billion.

Technically, a red notice is not an arrest warrant but a request to countries with law enforcement collaborating with Interpol to find and provisionally arrest individuals in question on behalf of the country where they are wanted.

The United Arab Emirates donated tens of millions to Interpol
The United Arab Emirates donated tens of millions to Interpol AFP / Ozan KOSE

The Interpol's red notice page does not yet have Kwon's name on it, but South Korean prosecutors have confirmed that such a request for the TFL executive has been issued, Bloomberg reported Monday.

Kwon's inclusion in the red notice list came a week after South Korean authorities made the said request to Interpol. It is the latest legal means the authorities utilized after learning that Kwon is no longer in Singapore, where he was believed to be residing following the dissolution of the Seoul and Busan headquarters of TFL.

The news also came a couple of weeks after South Korean authorities released an arrest warrant to Kwon and five other TFL employees for alleged violations of the capital markets laws of the country. If the executive is located by law enforcement, he will face several accusations of tax fraud and illegal fundraising.

Kwon is an interesting personality in the crypto world even before the Terra algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) depegged and the entire ecosystem crashed. He often attracts attention and draws flak online for his rude comments and irreverent attitude.

He has a reputation for putting down his critics by calling them "poor." In July 2021, he slammed Frances Coppola, a British economist who said that the self-correcting mechanism used by TerraUSD would eventually fail when investors panic and hurry for the exit.

Kwon responded by saying, "I don't debate the poor on Twitter, and sorry, I don't have any change on me for her at the moment."

To this day, the South Korean authorities have no idea of Kwon's whereabouts.

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