South Korea has ordered Do Kwon to surrender his passport, or risk getting it revoked, as the East Asian nation escalates actions against the crypto entrepreneur whose blockchain collapse earlier this year wiped investors’ $40 billion.
The South Korean government has given Kwon 14 days to comply with the new order, it said in a notice on the website Thursday. The order follows Interpol issuing a red notice against the crypto entrepreneur last month, requesting law enforcement agencies worldwide to locate and arrest him.
Kwon’s current whereabouts is unknown, but he is keeping his followers up to date with his life through Twitter.
On Wednesday, he refuted claims that his crypto funds had been frozen after media reports said South Korean prosecutors had escalated actions against him.
Korean media outlet News1 reported that prosecutors had frozen $39.6 million of crypto assets tied to the Terraform Labs founder and chief executive. The report was amplified by CoinDesk, a popular crypto-focused news outlet.
In response, Kwon labelled the news item as “falsehood,” once again reiterating that he doesn’t use KuCoin and OkEx. “Have no time to trade, no funds have been frozen,” he said. “I don’t know whose funds they’ve frozen, but good for them, hope they use it for good,” he added.
The collapse of Terra cryptocurrency (Luna) and the so-called stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) in May wiped out investors’ $40 billion, prompting an uproar that caused the prosecutors to launch investigations into Kwon and his colleagues.
Kwon has previously said that he is not trying to hide from the authority and is not on the run, a characterization the South Korean prosecutors have refuted.