Terra Founder Do Kwon’s Assets Frozen: $26 Million Seized, Double the Estimated Amount

Terra blockchain founder, Do Kwon, has found himself in a legal predicament. Recently, Swiss authorities seized assets totaling $26 million – double the initially estimated amount. Kwon, along with his assistant Han Chang-joon, was arrested in March for attempting to leave the country with fake passports.

Arrested for Document Fraud

Kwon and Chang-joon were arrested in Montenegro (the Republic of Montenegro) earlier this year. According to the Montenegrin court’s announcement, both were found guilty of ‘forgery of documents’ and were sentenced to four months in prison. The court is currently considering South Korea’s extradition request, but no decision has been reached.

$26 Million Frozen in Switzerland

In addition to the legal troubles in Montenegro, the Swiss prosecutor’s office has recently frozen Kwon’s assets stored in Signum, a digital asset bank in Zurich, Switzerland, according to a weekend report by South Korean media, “Digital Asset.” The frozen assets amount to $26 million.

（Image via The Times of Israel）

The reported account belongs to Do Kwon, former TFL CFO Han Chong-Joon, former head of the TFL research team Nicholas Platias, and TFL Company. Some of the assets are in Bitcoin.

Interestingly, the frozen assets are double the amount initially estimated by Korean prosecutors. Earlier this month, the head of the financial securities crime department of the Seoul District Prosecutor’s Office revealed in an interview that “funds related to Do Kwon exceed $13 million.”

Is there More Hidden Assets?

According to BlockTempo’s report in February, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stated that Do Kwon and Terra’s parent company, Terraform Labs, had previously stored over 10,000 Bitcoins in a cold wallet. Since the Terra USD crash in May 2022, Bitcoin from the cold wallet was periodically transferred to a bank in Switzerland and converted into cash, allegedly cashing out $100 million.

Furthermore, a statement by South Korean prosecutors in April estimated the total amount of illegal assets related to Terra to be about $314.2 million. Of these, the illegal income related to Do Kwon was $69 million. However, he left almost no assets in South Korea, leading to public speculation about whether Do Kwon has other hidden assets elsewhere.

Keywords: Do Kwon, Terra, Montenegro, Document Forgery, Swiss prosecutor’s office, Digital Asset, Signum, Nicholas Platias, TFL Company, Seoul District Prosecutor’s Office, Blockzone, Terraform Labs