A South Korean court has issued an arrest warrant against Do Kwon, the co-founder of the now defunct stablecoin issuer Terraform Labs.
According to Chosun Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper, the warrant was issued by the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office’s Joint Investigation Team on Financial Securities Crimes led by director Dan Sung-han and 2nd Division of Financial Investigations led by chief prosecutor Chae Hee-man.
Additionally, the report stated that the warrant included five additional individuals citing a text message from the prosecutors’ office. These individuals are being charged with violating the South Korean Capital Markets Act.
The warrant is valid for one year and prosecutors are hoping to work with Interpol to carry out the arrests.
The warrant comes four months after the collapse of the $40 billion Terra ecosystem and its algorithmic stablecoin (UST), the first domino to fall in this year’s crypto winter.
In the months since the demise of UST and Luna, Kwon launched an audacious plan to rebuild the Terra ecosystem with a new version of its native currency.
Nonetheless, as a result of the subsequent contagion, the value of digital assets fell by more than 50% from its peak, leading to the insolvency of cryptocurrency lenders Celsius Network and Voyager Digital.
Singapore-based hedge fund Three Arrows Capital was another firm that filed for bankruptcy after the extent of its exposure to the Terra network. The implosion of Three Arrows left a trail of troubled loans across the crypto industry, with billions being owed to creditors.
However, according to his first public interview last month, Kwon had maintained that he is cooperating with authorities.