Do Kwon Takes More Heat In Montenegro As Prosecutors Appeal Against His Bail Terms

Do Kwon, the disgraced founder of Terraform Labs (TFL), the blockchain firm behind the so-called algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) and LUNA, is taking more heat in Montenegro after prosecutors questioned a court's decision on his bail terms and appealed the ruling to the country's Supreme Court.

The 31-year-old developer, who attracted a lot of attention before the controversial collapse of his crypto empire because of his brash talk and double-speak, is still in uncharted waters in the Balkan country after a district prosecutor's office in Podgorica, Montenegro, filed an appeal against the latest court's decision to allow bail to Kwon and his associate and TFL executive Han Chang-Joon.

The court had decided to grant Kwon a release from detention on bail of $436,000 and the bail deal was approved on May 12, with the court agreeing with Kwon's legal team's proposal to put the crypto executive under house arrest instead of being taken into custody.

The Montenegrin court spent only a day deciding on the proposal. As per court documents cited by reports, if the house arrest is compromised, the bail would be put into a "special section" of the court's working budget. They further stated that if the defendants, Kwon and Chang-Joon, who are accused of traveling using fake documents, pay the bail amount, they will be released from the Montenegro detention facility and would be reportedly moved to an apartment that belongs to a local lawyer.

But the prosecutor's most recent move prevents the defendants from getting released and will hold them in custody until the country's magistrate decides to approve or reject the appeal.

Kwon is still wanted for extradition in South Korea with several charges to answer in the United States in connection with the spectacularly catastrophic crash of crypto assets LUNA and UST.

Both the U.S. and South Korea have requested the extradition of the crypto executive, claiming he should face legal prosecution for his alleged fraudulent acts.

Kwon could face the highest prison time in his home country and he could face heavier punishment in the United States.

Kwon, who has repeatedly claimed he was not on the run, was arrested on March 23 at the Podgorica airport while attempting to flee the Balkan country to Dubai.

He was placed on the Red Notice list of Interpol last September after authorities confirmed that he was no longer in Singapore, the country he moved into in May 2022 after Terra came crashing down and wiped billions of dollars in investment.

Kwon maintained his innocence despite all the allegations leveled against him and said that the mistakes that caused the collapse, if there are any, were made in the Terra-LUNA project handled by Terraform Labs.

He argued that he had no intention to deceive investors and claimed that charges filed against him in South Korea were "politically driven."