Do Kwon converted stolen funds from Luna to Bitcoin: S.Korean prosecutors

South Korean prosecutors person identified 414.5 cardinal won ($314.2 million) successful illicit assets associated with Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon and his associates. Out of the $314 cardinal identified illicit assets, prosecutors person linked astir 91.4 cardinal won ($69 million) of the specified magnitude to Kwon.

Although Kwon amassed millions, nary of the assets tied to him is recoverable oregon nether the jurisdiction of the S.Korean authorities. This is chiefly due to the fact that the now-arrested erstwhile CEO reportedly converted astir of the stolen funds into Bitcoin (BTC) utilizing overseas crypto exchanges alternatively of investing successful carnal assets, arsenic per a report published successful the South Korean regular KBS.

The South Korean authorities person requested Binance to halt immoderate withdrawal petition associated with Kwon. Binance confirmed to Cointelegraph that they so are cooperating with the prosecutors and offering immoderate assistance they need. 

"We provided Korean LE authorities with the requested assistance. Since we cannont remark ongoing LE investigations, for immoderate further remark delight scope retired to the prosecutors."

South Korean prosecutors are actively tracing properties associated with Terraform Labs executives successful bid to retrieve immoderate of the illicit funds stolen from the Terra-Luna debacle. On April 3 prosecutors seized homes and different assets successful an effort to halt erstwhile Terra employees from selling things that mightiness beryllium tied to ineligible cases.

In summation to the residences successful Seoul owned by erstwhile CEO Shin Hyun-seong and others, the prosecutors besides filed foreclosure actions against their foreign-registered vehicles, lands successful Hwaseong and Gapyeong successful Gyeonggi-do, and Taean successful South Chungcheong Province.

Related: Do Kwon faces fraud charges from US prosecutors hours aft arrest

Terra Luna was a booming crypto ecosystem based connected the algorithmic stablecoin Terra-USD classical (USTC). However, the stablecoin depegged successful May 2022, starring to a illness of the $40 cardinal ecosystem wrong days.

What was initially thought to beryllium a market-triggered lawsuit turned retired to beryllium a wide lawsuit of fraud, with erstwhile CEO Kwon astatine the halfway of it. According to on-chain data, In the 3 weeks starring up to the depeg, 1 entity dumped implicit $450 cardinal of USTC connected the unfastened market. 4 days aft their past sale, USTC started collapsing. And the entity down the monolithic dump was nary different than Terraform Labs.

TFL has been perpetrating the communicative that UST was "attacked". This is simply a mendacious flag. In reality, TFL themselves weakened the Curve excavation by irresponsibly dumping a monolithic magnitude of UST successful a abbreviated timeframe. This reduced liquidity and severely weakened the peg.

— FatMan (@FatManTerra) December 6, 2022

Despite an apprehension warrant from South Korean authorities and an Interpol reddish announcement against his name, Kwon continued to evade apprehension for astir a twelvemonth earlier getting caught connected March 23 in Montenegro.