(Bloomberg) -- Terraform Labs Pte. co-founder Do Kwon, a cryptocurrency fugitive being held in Montenegro and wanted in both South Korea and the US, may end up on trial in New York after the Balkan nation’s Supreme Court overturned earlier decisions, including those to hand him over to his native country.  

In case of dueling demands, the country’s justice minister will eventually decide where to hand over the suspect, after courts determine whether conditions for extradition are met, the Supreme Court said in a statement on Friday. It also sent back the case to Podgorica-based High Court for that legal assessment. 

The top court in the Balkan nation of 620,000 acted after Montenegro’s top prosecutor challenged Kwon’s extradition to South Korea, citing procedural errors in the verdict. Kwon’s legal team has pushed for extradition to South Korea, where sentences for white-collar crimes tend to be less harsh than in the US. Montenegro’s government intends to approve extradition to the US, a person close to the matter, who declined to be identified as the decision isn’t public yet, told Bloomberg in late February. 

Hiding for months after the $40 billion collapse of his TerraUSD stablecoin in 2022, Do Kwon was arrested a year ago in Montenegro for traveling on a fake passport. 

The disgraced former crypto mogul has since been caught in an institutional tug-of-war in Montenegro as the country’s justice ministry argued Kwon should be handed over to the US, while courts ruled he should be extradited to South Korea. Throughout the legal battle, the US Department of Justice pushed its case for handover.   

“The United States continues to seek Kwon’s extradition in accordance with relevant international and bilateral agreements and Montenegrin law,” the Justice Department said in a March 7 statement, following a ruling to send Kwon to South Korea. “The United States appreciates the cooperation of the Montenegrin authorities in ensuring that all individuals are subject to the rule of law.”

Kwon was released from prison in late March, when his detention for the crime committed in Montenegro ended. His passport was withheld and he was taken to a shelter for foreigners as he awaits an extradition decision. 

US prosecutors are keen to move forward the Kwon case, part of a series of high-profile cases in which prosecutors and regulators aim to wrest greater control over the crypto industry. FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison last week for stealing billions of dollars from customers, the final chapter in a case that upended the industry.

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