Terraform Labs Pte. The co-founder of Kwon pleaded guilty to accusations in pursuing fraud in the United States linked to the collapse of $ 40 billion in Stablecoin Terrausd in 2022.
Kwon pleaded guilty of conspiracy and fraud by wire under an agreement with the prosecutors during an audience in New York on Tuesday. The 33 -year -old man, dressed in a yellow prison combination, also agreed to lose $ 19.3 million and certain properties as part of the advocacy agreement.
“I knowingly agreed with the others to fraud and I in fact defrauded, the cryptocurrency buyers published by my company, Terraform Labs,” said Kwon, reading a press release. “What I did was bad and I want to apologize for my driving. I take full responsibility. ”
Kwon was charged in South Korea and the United States as part of the Terraform de Terraform implosion, based in Singapore, which rocked the world of cryptography in the spring of 2022 and helped trigger the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.
The guilt advocacy is diverting a trial for next year before the American district judge Paul Engelmayer.
He was charged in 2023 and was extradited to the United States in January, after spending almost two years in Montenegro, where he had been arrested and found guilty of having used a false passport when he was fugitive from his native South Korea accusations.
US prosecutors said the longest sentence they would ask for a plea agreement were 12 years old. The maximum of American sentences is five years for the counting of the plot and 20 years for the costs of fraud by wire.
The conviction is scheduled for December 11. He had faced nine accusations under the indictment.
After having served half of his sentence, the United States will support Kwon to spend the rest of his prison sentence in South Korea, if he respects the terms of his advocacy agreement and qualified as part of the transfer program.
Kwon had been a fugitive from the South Korean accusations for months when the former financial director of Terraform and were taken with false passports in March 2023, trying to climb a private jet linked to Dubai at the airport of the capital of Montenegro, Podgorica.
Dry box
Terraform and Kwon, which held 92% of the company, were tried responsible for civil fraud in an action in 2024 by the Securities and Exchange American Commission. A jury in New York, at the end of a two -week trial, determined that Kwon and Terraform misleading investors – a lamentable sign for the chances of the former crypto magnate to beat criminal charges.
The jury concluded that Terraform and Kwon falsely claimed that Chai, a popular Korean payment application, used Terraform’s Blockchain technology to carry out transactions. The jurors also found that investors had been misled about the stability of the stablecoin, which, according to Kwon and Terraform, was algorithmic in the US dollar.
Terraform and Kwon then agreed to pay $ 4.47 billion and finish the company, as part of an agreement to resolve the case.
The case is US c. Kwon, 23-CR-0151, American district court, South New York District (Manhattan).
