Just a few days following Terraform Labs’ settlement with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), fresh revelations from an April court filing have sparked a new controversy surrounding the defunct crypto venture.
The SEC has disclosed that Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajic was an early investor in Terraform Labs, as reported by Montenegrin media outlet Vijesti. Spajic, who assumed office in October 2023, reportedly invested $75,000 in the Singapore-based company in April 2018, acquiring 750,000 Terra (LUNA) tokens.
The report indicates that Spajic was among the initial investors in Terraform Labs, investing just days before the company was officially registered in Singapore on April 23, 2018.
The information came to light in court documents filed by the SEC. Prior to the release of these documents, the Montenegrin prime minister had denied personal investment in the failed crypto project, attributing the investment to Das Capital SG, a Singaporean company he had worked for between 2017 and 2020. However, the SEC documents clearly list him as an investor, revealing that he was one of the earliest backers of the company with a contract dated April 17, 2018.
Terraform Labs, known for its LUNA and TerraUSD (UST) crypto tokens, once held a market cap of $2 billion before its collapse in May 2022, resulting in a loss of nearly $40 billion in the crypto market. The collapse of Terra not only impacted the crypto ecosystem but also caused the downfall of several crypto hedge funds that had provided collateral to the firm.
In April 2024, a jury found Terraform Labs and co-founder Do Kwon guilty of defrauding investors in a civil case with the SEC. Kwon was apprehended in March 2023 by international law enforcement agencies after evading capture for several months.
The emergence of new documents confirming a direct contract between Spajic and Terraform Labs could potentially pose challenges for the prime minister for failing to disclose his personal investment in the project.