Montenegro to Extradite South Korean Crypto Specialist Do Kwon to the United States

Montenegro said Friday it will extradite to the United States the South Korean cryptocurrency specialist Do Kwon, who is also wanted by Seoul for the multi-billion-dollar bankruptcy of his company, Terraform Labs.

His lawyers denounced the decision as illegal and contrary to European conventions on extradition.

For months, Seoul and Washington have been seeking the South Korean's extradition for his suspected role in a fraud linked to his company's failure, which wiped out about $40 billion of investors' money and shook global crypto markets.

Justice Minister Bojan Bozovic "issued a decision approving the extradition of the accused, Kwon Do Hyung, to the United States of America," the justice ministry said, referring to him by his full name.

The decision followed a year and a half of court rulings and subsequent reversals regarding his extradition.

"It was concluded that the majority of the criteria prescribed by law favour the extradition request" from the United States, the ministry added in a statement.

The crypto tycoon was arrested in March at the airport in Podgorica, the Montenegrin capital, while preparing to board a flight to Dubai, in possession of a fake Costa Rican passport.

Before his arrest, he had been on the run for months, fleeing South Korea and later Singapore, before his company went bankrupt in 2022.

After a series of rulings by the Montenegrin courts, approving and then cancelling extradition requests, the country's Constitutional Court lifted the final hurdle on Tuesday.

It said in a ruling that previous proceedings "ensured the appellant's right to a fair trial and did not raise concerns about a possible violation of the right to family life".

The court also said that Kwon, during the hearing, "personally consented to expedited extradition to both the Republic of South Korea and the United States".

Kwon's Montenegrin lawyers, Marija Radulovic and Goran Rodic, said in a statement to AFP that they had not been provided with the ministry's full decision.

They called that "a drastic violation of Do Kwon's fundamental human rights, namely the right to defence and the right to appeal".

Montenegro had already deported Kwon's business partner -- identified only by his initials J.C.H. -- to South Korea in early February.

Terraform Labs created a cryptocurrency called TerraUSD that was marketed as a "stablecoin", a token that is pegged to stable assets such as the US dollar to prevent drastic fluctuations.

Do Kwon successfully marketed them as the next big thing in crypto, attracting billions in investments and global hype.

Media reports in South Korea described him as a "genius".

But despite billions in investments, TerraUSD and its sister token Luna went into a death spiral in May 2022.

Experts said Kwon had set up a glorified Ponzi scheme, in which many investors lost their life savings.

He left South Korea before the crash and spent months on the run.

In January, Terraform Labs officially sought bankruptcy protection in the United States.

The bankruptcy filing would allow Terraform "to execute on its business plan while navigating ongoing legal proceedings, including representative litigation pending in Singapore and US litigation involving the Securities and Exchange Commission," the company said in a statement.

It said it also intended to "meet all financial obligations to employees and vendors".

Cryptocurrencies have come under increasing scrutiny from regulators after a string of controversies in recent years, including the high-profile collapse of the exchange FTX.