Do Kwon: Swiss authorities freeze $26M worth of assets belonging to Terra founder

Law enforcement agents have unearthed a stash of assets belonging to embattled Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon in a cross-border operation involving U.S. authorities.

South Korean news publication Digital Asset stated that Swiss authorities, in collaboration with the New York Federal Prosecutors’ Office and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), froze Kwon’s assets. The report notes that the assets were in the form of BTC and other digital assets stashed away in the custody of the Swiss-based Sygnum bank.

Global prosecutors have been closely monitoring the money trail since the collapse of Terra’s ecosystem in 2022. Dan Seong-Han, head of Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office financial crime division, speculated that Kwon may have moved around $13 billion worth of funds to Sygnum.

The U.S. SEC also made a similar claim in its lawsuit against Kwon, stating that “CEO Kwon sent 10,000 BTC to a financial institution in Switzerland.” Since Kwon’s arrest in Montenegro, law enforcement agencies have frozen several assets linked to the embattled founder after nearly 12 months in the dark.

In May, South Korean prosecutors revealed the seizure of assets worth over $176 million linked to Kwon after claiming a month earlier that “Kwon’s assets are not in the country.” The confiscated assets include a fleet of luxury cars, an office complex in Seoul, and a Galleria Foret apartment.

Authorities also traced the sum of $7 million transferred by Kwon to his lawyers in the weeks preceding Terra’s implosion, which investigators say raised several flags.

“The fact that they sent a large sum of money to a large law firm before the crash should be seen as a situation in which they were prepared for judicial risks such as the prosecution’s investigation,” said one official.

In the Balkans, Serbian authorities seized a $2.2 million luxury apartment purchased by Kwon’s accomplice Han Chang-Joon after identifying the registration of a consulting company with the Serbian Business Registry.

Rollercoaster ride in Montenegro

A Basic Court recently charged Kwon with four months in jail after being found guilty of document forgery while Montenegrin officials work on the extradition requests filed by the U.S. and South Korea.

Since Kwon’s arrest in Montenegro, the U.S. and South Korea have been jostling for his extradition. South Korean officials claim they have enough evidence to put Kwon behind bars for up to 40 years, hinting that Kwon may be shipped to the U.S. following the completion of his sentence.

Amid the mounting legal battle, Kwon is set to be probed by the Special State Prosecutor’s Office over his illicit funding of local politician Milojko Spajic.

Watch: Callahan, MaGruder, Lee, and Reinhardt: Probing criminal acts

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeek’s Bitcoin for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoin—as originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto—and blockchain.