Do Kwon to miss part of US fraud trial due to extradition delay

Do Kwon is likely to miss the start of his trial in the United States due to delays in his extradition from Montenegro, a new report has revealed.

Kwon was initially set to stand trial for securities fraud on January 29. However, his legal team requested the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to postpone the trial as his extradition had taken longer than expected.

The civil trial was pushed forward two months to March 25, but as Reuters reports, Kwon will still be unable to be present when the trial starts. Kwon’s lawyer, David Patton, filed a letter with a Manhattan court stating that the Korean would unlikely be extradited to the U.S. by then.

Patton’s letter added that the extradition was taking longer than expected due to “numerous unanticipated mistakes” committed by lower courts in Montenegro. According to Goran Rodic, Kwon’s local lawyer in the Balkan country, the extradition is unlikely to be completed this month.

Kwon’s dramatic extradition has seen the U.S. and his home country of South Korea collide on who should have him first. Initially, South Korea appeared to be the most likely destination. After all, Han Chang-joon, the former CFO of Terraform Labs who was arrested alongside Kwon, was extradited to Korea last month after serving a four-month sentence for document forgery.

However, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. government intervened, leading Montenegro’s Justice Minister Andrej Milovic—who has the final say on extradition decisions—to tip the scales for the U.S. Kwon’s legal team in Montenegro continues to fight the extradition.

Kwon faces eight criminal charges in the U.S., ranging from securities fraud and conspiracy to wire fraud and commodities fraud. The SEC has also filed civil charges against the 32-year-old.

Kwon founded Terraform Labs in 2018 and launched the LUNA token later that year. In 2020, the company launched the UST algorithmic stablecoin, whose instability and
eventual collapse in 2022 sparked a $60 billion wipe-out in days. It also sparked the implosion of dozens of related companies, including Voyager Digital, Three Arrows Capital (3AC), BlockFi, and more.

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