Terraform Labs co-founder, Do Kwon, may not be extradited to the United States in time for the firm’s trial with the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), according to his legal representatives.
In filings made on February 26th in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, David Patton of Kaplan Hecker & Fink stated that Kwon “is unlikely to be extradited before the end of March” from Montenegro, where he has been since March 2023. The lawyer explained that while they expected Kwon to have already been extradited to the U.S., “unforeseen errors” have caused delays in the process.
Patton also noted that Kwon will likely not be present for the trial, scheduled to begin on March 25th, 2024. However, he made it clear that they will not be seeking any adjournment of the trial date, regardless of Kwon’s extradition timing.
Goran Rodic, Kwon’s legal representative for proceedings in Montenegro, revealed that the country’s High Court made a ruling on February 21st to extradite the Terraform co-founder to the U.S. However, Rodic stated that the ruling was based on incorrect information. According to Rodic, the Montenegrin court ruled based on the claim that the U.S. filed for extradition before South Korea, when in fact, the opposite was true.
“We have appealed the High Court’s decision on February 21, 2024, due to the illegality of the ruling ordering his extradition to the United States,” said Rodic. “The ‘summary’ process has taken longer than expected due to numerous unforeseen errors made by the lower court. At this point, I do not expect Mr. Kwon to be extradited to either South Korea or the United States before the end of March.”
The lawyers’ filings suggested that the United States is likely to win the extradition battle with South Korea. Kwon was arrested in Montenegro in March 2023 for using forged travel documents and has remained in the country for about a year while extradition requests were processed. His whereabouts were largely unknown between the collapse of Terra in May 2022 and his arrest.
In February 2023, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Kwon and Terraform, and in March 2023, the U.S. Attorney’s Office charged the Terra co-founder with eight criminal counts, shortly after his arrest. Kwon and Terraform were accused of orchestrating a “multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud” related to the offering of TerraUSD (UST) and Terra (LUNA).
Judge Jed Rakoff, overseeing the civil case, granted summary judgment in favor of the SEC in December 2023, regarding Terraform’s alleged offering of unregistered securities. The trial date has already been postponed to potentially accommodate Kwon but is expected to commence on March 25th. Former U.S. President Donald Trump is also scheduled to appear in the same court district on that day for his first criminal trial.