Over the weekend, Terraform Labs CEO and co-founder Do Kwon took to Twitter to say he wasn’t “on the run” or “anything like that.” He made the statement after South Korean authorities issued an arrest warrant for him and five others connected to Terraform Labs for violating the country’s capital market laws last week. But Korean prosecutors are not convinced, especially since authorities in Singapore, where Kwon flew in April, said he was no longer in the country. Now, the Seoul Southern District Public Prosecutor’s Office is requesting Interpol to place him on the agency’s red notice list and revoke his passport, according to financial time.
According to the Interpol website, a Red Notice involves seeking “the location and arrest of persons wanted for prosecution or to serve a sentence” and is commonly issued for fugitives. What Yonhap News Notes, Kwon flew to Singapore at the end of April, when he dissolved his company’s office in Korea. His family members and other key Terraform Labs personnel reportedly followed him to the city-state in May.
The Terraform Labs executive and other staff are under investigation for financial fraud and tax evasion following the collapse of the company’s stablecoins, TerraUSD and Luna. $40 billion of investor money was removed from the event. And those investors, who lost their life savings in the crash, filed lawsuits accusing him of running a Ponzi scheme.
Prosecutors believe he left Korea to “evade investigation,” since Kwon also apparently told them through his lawyers that he did not intend to appear before them for questioning. A spokesman for the Seoul prosecutor’s office said The times they are doing everything they can to track him down and arrest him. “He is clearly on the run, as key financial people from his company also left for the same country during that time,” they added.
Kwon has not yet responded to prosecutors who asked Interpol for help in finding him. On Twitter, his location remains Singapore, and his last tweets are still from the weekend, denying that he was trying to avoid being caught by the police.
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