South Korean authorities have moved to prevent Do Kwon, the embattled CEO and co-founder of Terraform Labs (TFL), from accessing his supposed cryptocurrencies believed to be held by Binance.
After freezing assets of Terraform Labs executives believed to have amassed millions of funds from the failed Terra ecosystem and learning that Kwon has nearly zero assets in the country, South Korean prosecutors are reportedly working with Binance officials to prevent Kwon from accessing any of the supposed assets apparently kept on the world’s largest centralized crypto exchange platform by trading volume.
The platform’s representative confirmed this and noted that it has responded to the request of the prosecutors but it could not provide any more details because the issue is part of an ongoing investigation.
“We provided Korean [law enforcement] authorities with the requested assistance,” the spokesperson said.
Freezing assets is usually intended to prevent those accused of financial crimes from accessing their stash and dispensing their wealth before a criminal investigation which is typically followed by a court proceeding.
A few days ago, an unnamed South Korean prosecutor confirmed that the office’s attempt to freeze Kwon’s assets in the country has been in vain since he has nearly zero properties.
“It has been found that there is very little property formed and owned by CEO Kwon in the country,” said an unnamed prosecutor.
According to a local report, the South Korean prosecutors’ inability to freeze Kwon’s assets was a result of a slick move by the former crypto fugitive to outmaneuver authorities. The report disclosed that Kwon reportedly converted all of his alleged assets in the country into Bitcoin.
He then reportedly moved his stash from the country to Binance, an exchange that is based outside South Korea.
Authorities already confirmed that they have reached out to Binance and asked the CEX to freeze the assets in question.
Kwon is currently detained in Montenegro after he was arrested at the Podgorica Airport while trying to leave the country using a supposed fake Costa Rican passport. If proven guilty of the criminal charge, he could serve at least one year of prison time.
South Korean authorities already requested the CEO’s extradition so he could face criminal charges in his home country.
In February, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged both Kwon and Terraform Labs, the blockchain firm he founded, with “orchestrating a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud involving an algorithmic stablecoin and other crypto asset securities.”
