Do Kwon, the South Korean cryptocurrency entrepreneur behind two digital currencies that lost an estimated $40 billion in 2022, is set to appear in a U.S. court on Thursday to face criminal fraud charges after being extradited from Montenegro this week.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan in March 2023 charged Kwon, who co-founded Terraform Labs and developed the TerraUSD and Luna tokens, with two counts of securities fraud, wire fraud, commodity fraud and conspiracy.
Kwon has denied any wrongdoing. He agreed in June to pay an $80 million civil penalty and be barred from cryptocurrency trading as part of a $4.55 billion settlement he and Terraform reached with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
He is expected to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Lehrberger in Manhattan federal court on Thursday afternoon.
Last April, a federal jury in Manhattan found Kwon and Terraform liable in a civil trial for defrauding crypto investors.
One of Terraform’s attorneys said in closing arguments that Terraform and Kwon were honest about their products and how they worked, even when they failed.
Kwon did not attend that trial because he has been detained in Montenegro since March 2023. Terraform filed for bankruptcy last January.
