Montenegro police have announced that the former financial officer of Terraform Labs, Han Chang-joon, has been successfully extradited to South Korea. This comes after Han completed a four-month prison sentence in Montenegro for attempting to travel with forged documents.
Han Chang-joon is a South Korean national who is best known as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Terraform Labs, a now-defunct cryptocurrency firm that was behind the TerraUSD stablecoin.
Han Chang-joon is being extradited from Montenegro to face criminal charges in South Korea. The charges include fraud in financial investment services, investments, and the capital market, with the possibility of a life sentence.
Han and co-founder Do Kwon were arrested in March 2023 at Podgorica Airport in Montenegro, concluding a six-month international manhunt and drawing attention to alleged financial irregularities involving Terraform Labs.
Terraform Labs, the company behind the stablecoins TerraUSD and the LUNA cryptocurrency, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States following the collapse of its crypto assets in 2022. The company’s collapse led to significant market turmoil, with its stablecoins losing an estimated $40 billion or more.
The co-founder, Do Kwon, who owns a 92% stake in the company, is currently in custody in Montenegro for using falsified documents to leave the US. The collapse was attributed to the unsustainable operation of the Anchor Protocol and the failure of the algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD to maintain its peg to the US dollar.
Terraform Lab’s filing is aimed at allowing it to continue building its Web3 business and executing its business plan while navigating ongoing legal challenges, including litigation involving the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and representative litigation pending in Singapore and the US.
The lawyer representing the founder and co-founder, Goran Rodic, mentioned that they are awaiting a decision on Do Kwon’s extradition following their appeal. Both U.S. and South Korean prosecutors seek Do Kwon’s extradition related to the $60 billion collapse of the algorithmic stablecoin Terra in 2022.
