A court in
Montenegro has once again granted bail to Do Kwon, the disgraced Co-Founder of Terraform
Labs who was accused of fraud in South Korea and the US, after an
appeal by the local prosecutors fell through. In an announcement made on Friday, the Basic Court of Podgorica said it had re-adopted the bail
terms set on May 12 which state that Kwon and Terraform Labs’ Chief
Financial Officer, Han Chang-Joon, each pay 400,000 euros (US$428,241).
Confinement under Police Surveillance
Furthermore,
according to the bail agreement, the local police would keep the duo under strict
supervision, and none of them is allowed to leave the apartment where they are
confined. The announcement added that the failure of both parties to comply would forfeit their
bail.
Kwon and Han were reportedly on the run following an investigation into the collapse of Terraform Labs’ cryptocurrency projects, TerraUSD and LUNA, in May 2022, which wiped out more than $40 billion from the cryptocurrency market. Both South Korean nationals were arrested at Podgorica Airport in March while attempting to leave the city using fake travel documents.
In May, the Basic
Court of Podgorica granted them bail, but it was later appealed by the
prosecutors and annulled by an upper court because the defendants’ property had not been sufficiently assessed. However, on Friday, the decision
was overturned.
“The court
appreciated the fact that they are persons who are not Montenegrin citizens, that is why it accepted their statements about the value of the property they
own, which were supported by concrete evidence,” the Basic Court originally said
in Montenegrin and was translated to English using Google Translate.
According to a
local newspaper, Vijesti, lawyers representing Kwon and Han recently submitted
documents regarding the defendants’ financial status as evidence to the courts.
More Time to Authenticate ‘Fake Documents’
Furthermore, the court
said it needed sufficient time to verify the authenticity of the Belgium
passports and identity cards which were found on Kwon and Han as ID. Earlier, the pair had their passports confiscated in South Korea.
The prosecutors in
the case have been given three days to appeal the court’s latest decision, with
the next hearing set for June 16.
In February, the US federal securities regulators charged Do Kwon for engaging in commodities, securities, and wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud investors through market manipulation. Similarly, the Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Kwon for operating a ‘multi-billion-dollar crypto asset securities fraud’.
Brokeree, Advance Markets partner; illegal brokers; read today’s news nuggets.
This article was written by Jared Kirui at www.financemagnates.com.
