South Korea Intensifies TFL Investigation, Seizes Millions In Real Estate, Other Assets From Employees

Weeks after the arrest of Do Kwon, who co-founded Terraform Labs (TFL) and developed TerraUSD (UST) and LUNA stablecoins, South Korean authorities seized millions worth of real estate and other assets from eight TFL employees allegedly linked to the controversy surrounding the crypto business.

South Korean authorities have, over the past weeks, amped up their investigation into the spectacular collapse of UST and LUNA in May 2022. After Kwon's arrest in Montenegro, they requested an arrest warrant for Shin "Daniel" Hyun-Song, one of the founders of the vexed blockchain firm.

While the request is still pending, it appears that authorities moved on to their next target – the executives, employees and their properties.

The Seoul Southern District Prosecutor's Office financial and securities crime joint investigation team confiscated around 210 billion won or approximately $160 million worth of real estate and other assets from TFL executives and employees, a local news outlet reported earlier this week.

Authorities reportedly seized $60 million worth of properties that belong to former Terra vice president Kim Mo and $31 million worth of properties of another unnamed executive.

It is believed that the South Korean prosecutors' latest move was directed to prevent Terra employees from disposing of the assets and to make sure they would be litigated as part of a possible criminal proceeding.

"We are still investigating the property ownership status of the suspects, and we plan to carry out collection preservation for the confirmed property in the future in order to recover the proceeds of crime and recover damages," a spokesperson for the prosecution team said.

South Korean prosecutors seized Shin's house in Seoul, which was worth 100 billion won or approximately $76 million. So far, no South Korean court has issued an arrest warrant for Terraform Labs' co-founder Shin.

The report did not mention if any crypto asset was confiscated from the TFL executives and employees as part of the ongoing investigation.

Kwon, along with Terraform Labs chief financial officer Han Chang-joon, are still detained in Montenegro. The disgraced crypt executive could serve at least one year in prison in the country for alleged forgery of documents.

Kwon and Han were arrested at Podgorica airport in March while they tried to leave the country for Dubai.

South Korea and the United States have already requested the extradition of Kwon, who was on Interpol's red notice list and is wanted in connection with a $40 billion crash of the firm's cryptocurrencies that wiped out billions of dollars worth of investments and devastated retail investors all over the world.