[Breaking] Montenegro Police "Kwon Do-hyung Handed Over to US FBI Agents"

Kwon Do-hyung, a key figure in the collapse of the cryptocurrency 'Terra·Luna', has been handed over to the United States.

According to local dailies Vijesti and Pobjeda on the 31st (local time), the Montenegro Police Agency announced that "today, at Podgorica International Airport, Kwon was handed over to officials from the US judicial authorities and FBI agents."

Kwon's extradition to the US comes 1 year and 9 months after he was arrested at Podgorica International Airport, the capital of Montenegro, on March 23 last year.

Kwon had persistently fought legal battles locally to be extradited to Korea, but ultimately to no avail.

Kwon left Korea in April 2022, a month before the Terra·Luna collapse, and was on the run for 11 months before being arrested in Montenegro last March for possessing a forged Costa Rican passport, for which he was sentenced to four months in prison by a local court.

After serving his sentence, Kwon's detention was extended until a decision was made by the Montenegro court, as both the Korean and US governments simultaneously requested his extradition for financial fraud charges. Upon the expiration of his detention period, he was transferred to a foreigner detention center.

Initially, Kwon's extradition to Korea was decided by the Podgorica High Court, but in April, the Montenegro Supreme Court overturned this decision, ruling that it was at the discretion of the Minister of Justice.

Subsequently, Minister of Justice Bojan Bozovic decided against extraditing Kwon to Korea and opted to extradite him to the United States.

With Kwon's extradition to the US, it is expected that he may face a higher sentence than in Korea. In Korea, the maximum sentence for economic crimes is about 40 years, but in the US, a concurrent sentencing system is applied, where sentences are added for each individual crime.

Choi Soo-jin, Hankyung.com reporter naive@hankyung.com