South Korean cryptocurrency entrepreneur Do Kwon will be extradited to the United States from Montenegro over the crash of two digital tokens – TerraUSD and Luna tokens.
For months, the US and South Korea have sought Kwon's extradition, claiming the fraud bankrupted the company behind the tokens, which drained about $40 billion (£31.7 billion) from investors and rocked global crypto markets.
Montenegro has no extradition treaties with the US or South Korea, so the matter had to be litigated.
The ruling marks the end of more than 18 months of rulings and reversals.
“Minister of Justice Bojan Bojović issued a decision approving the extradition of the accused Kwon Do Hyung to the United States of America,” the Ministry of Justice said in a statement.
“It was concluded that the majority of the criteria prescribed by law favor the request for extradition by the competent authorities of the United States of America,” the statement said.
He added that Kwon had agreed to be extradited to both South Korea and the United States.
In February, US regulators charged Kwon and his company Terraform Labs with “orchestrating a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud”.
“We allege that Terraform and Do Kwon failed to provide the public with full, fair and true disclosure as required for multiple crypto-asset securities, most notably Luna and TerraUSD,” the chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Gary Gensler said in a statement then.
The US alleges that Kwon repeatedly claimed that the value of the tokens would increase and misled investors about the stability of TerraUSD.
Despite billions in investment, TerraUSD and Luna went into a death spiral in May 2022.
This triggered a selloff in other major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin.
In September 2022 Interpol issued a “red notice” warrant for Kwon's arrest. He was in Singapore before his business collapsed and fled to Serbia before being picked up in Montenegro.
Kwon was arrested in March 2023 while trying to board a flight to Dubai at Podgorica Airport, the capital of Montenegro.
In June 2023 he was sentenced to four months in prison in Montenegro after being found guilty of falsifying official documents.
Former Terraform Labs financial officer Hon Chang-joon was extradited to South Korea in February after serving four months in prison in Montenegro on fraud charges.