Make Kwon’s prosecutors seeking Interpol red alert as Chase continues

Prosecutors said Kwon was “clearly on the run” after he denied hiding from authorities.

Does Kwon Facing Possible Interpol Red Notice

Time seems to be running out for Do Kwon.

Prosecutors in Seoul’s southern district said on Monday they had begun the process of adding him to Interpol’s red alert list as the hunt for the Terraform Labs chief intensifies. “We have started the procedure to place him on the Interpol red alert list and revoke his passport,” the office said. Financial Times reported on the development early Monday.

An Interpol red notice against Kwon would mean the Korean entrepreneur would become a wanted fugitive in 195 countries worldwide. When someone is placed on Interpol’s red alert list, authorities from the intergovernmental organization’s member states are asked to locate and arrest the person ahead of possible extradition.

Today’s update follows another week of drama surrounding the disgraced figurehead of the collapsed Terra blockchain. A court in Seoul issued an arrest warrant for him and five of his accomplices on September 14 before Prosecutors revealed plans to cancel his passport along with four of the five other suspects.

Singapore police then issued a statement on Saturday claiming that Kwon had fled the country, prompting him to do so take to Twitter to tell his followers that he was “not ‘on the run.'” Kwon added that he and his colleagues had been cooperating with authorities as the investigation into the Terra incident continues. “We are in the process of defending ourselves in multiple jurisdictions — we have held us to an extremely high bar of integrity, and look forward to clarifying the truth in the coming months,” he wrote. In response to Kwon’s statement, prosecutors said that “it is clear that he escaped,” the South Korean news agency said. Yonhap reported Sunday.

While the red notice has yet to be finalized, today’s development is the clearest sign yet that Kwon may be facing consequences for the role he played in Terra’s $40 billion implosion. Kwon was the main figure behind Terra, which memorably collapsed when the UST stablecoin lost its peg to the dollar in May. Several authorities around the world have been investigating Kwon and Terraform Labs since then, and he also faces several class-action lawsuits filed on behalf of Terra investors. As a result of Terra’s explosion, Kwon has been accused of several crimes, including defrauding investors, tax fraud, misappropriation of company funds and running a Ponzi scheme. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.