A judge has granted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) permission to work with international authorities to question one of the co-founders of Terraform Labs.
Court records indicate that District Judge Jed S. Rakoff approved the SEC’s request to ask for help from authorities in South Korea in regard to acquiring testimony from Daniel Shin, who co-founded Terraform Labs with Do Kwon.
The SEC alleges that Terraform Labs and Kwon “repeatedly misled and deceived investors” by telling them that Chai used the Terra blockchain to settle transactions that would accrue value to Terra’s native token, LUNA.
In February, the SEC alleged that Kwon transferred 10,000 Bitcoin (BTC), worth $250,000,000 at the time, from Terraform Labs and the Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) into Swiss bank account as LUNA and its algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD UST were imploding.
Swiss authorities reportedly froze $26 million worth of those assets last month, according to the Korean outlet Digital Asset. The Swiss digital asset bank Sygnum froze the crypto after Swiss authorities received requests from the New York Attorney’s Office and the SEC.
Kwon was sentenced to four months in prison in Montenegro in June for using a forged Costa Rican passport, though those relatively minor charges are likely just the beginning of the outspoken Terra founder’s problems.
Authorities in the United States and South Korea want to extradite the disgraced crypto executive, who’s facing multiple charges arising from the $40 billion crash of the Terra ecosystem.
Dan Sunghan, the director of the financial crime investigation bureau at the Seoul Southern District Prosecution Service, recently told Bloomberg that Kwon could serve more than four decades behind bars.
South Korean authorities reportedly charged Shin with fraud in April.
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