Crypto Fugitive Do Kwon Tapped Hoard of 10,000 Bitcoin Via Swiss Bank, SEC Says

Suvashree Ghosh, Bloomberg News

Source: Excerpt from US SEC complaint. ,

(Bloomberg) -- Crypto fugitive Do Kwon and the firm he founded transferred over 10,000 Bitcoin out of their doomed project and turned some of the tokens into cash via a Swiss bank, the Securities & Exchange Commission said.

The allegations are in an SEC lawsuit accusing Kwon and the company, Terraform Labs Pte, of fraud over the wipeout of digital currencies he created. The SEC said the scheme led to losses of at least $40 billion.

Kwon and Terraform put more than 10,000 Bitcoin into a so-called cold wallet that doesn’t sit on any digital-asset exchange, according to the complaint.

They’ve been periodically transferring Bitcoin from the wallet since May last year, sending the assets to a bank in Switzerland and converting the tokens to cash, the SEC said. It didn’t identify the financial institution.

“Between June 2022 and the date of this complaint, over $100 million in fiat currency has been withdrawn from that Swiss bank,” the agency alleged Thursday.

Kwon developed the TerraUSD stablecoin, which was meant to have a constant $1 value via a mix of algorithms and trader incentives involving a sister token, Luna. The edifice blew up in May 2022, exacerbating a $2 trillion crypto-market rout and contributing to the downfall of a range of digital-asset outfits.

Kwon’s whereabouts became unclear after South Korea issued a warrant for his arrest on allegations including breaches of capital-markets law. The Asian nation has said Kwon is also the subject of an Interpol red notice.

South Korean officials traveled to Serbia earlier this year to seek help in the hunt for Kwon after the Balkan nation emerged as a potential location for him.

“We are continuing efforts to locate Kwon, and it’s difficult to confirm anything related to the investigation at this stage,” the prosecutors’ office in Seoul said in a text message Friday.

Neither the fallen 31-year-old entrepreneur nor Terraform Labs replied to requests for comment on the lawsuit. Kwon has previously denied wrongdoing.

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--With assistance from Hooyeon Kim and Joanna Ossinger.