International crime-fighting agency Interpol reportedly issued a notice instructing law enforcement agencies worldwide to arrest Terraform Labs co-founder and CEO Do Kwon. Somehow, Kwon is still trying to convince the world, and likely himself, that he’s in fact, not on the run.
South Korean prosecutors claim Interpol issued the so-called “red notice” this week to encourage law enforcement agencies to hunt Kwon down, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Interpol did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment but their website described the notice as, “a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action.” Those notices are issued for wanted fugitives who are really, by definition, “on the run.”
So what exactly is Kwon totally not running from anyways? The crypto founder oversaw the rise and sudden collapse of TerraUSD and Luna stablecoins earlier this year. Those two coins plummeted from a market cap of around $US60 ($83) billion to basically nothing in May, which in turn helped tank the price of Bitcoin and ushered in one of the worst crypto winters in the industry’s history. Kwon was believed to be in Singapore during the chaos, though local law enforcement reportedly claims his current whereabouts are unknown. Earlier this month South Korean prosecutors issued a warrant for Kwon’s arrest claiming he allegedly violated the country’s capital markets law.
Terraform Labs did not respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
But Kwon’s shown no interest in returning to South Korea. Days after prosecutors issued the warrant for his arrest, they sent a request to South Korea’s Foreign Ministry to revoke his passport. With Kwon still refusing to budge, prosecutors decided to loop in Interpol.
Kwon, who’s still active on Twitter, responded to a user asking about the red notice on Monday and his response is about as hilarious as you’d expect.
“For something that has notice in the name it sure gives no notice,” Kwon wrote. Though Kwon’s name does not appear in an online list of public red notice warrants, The Wall Street Journal notes that the majority of notices are not made public.
“Yeah as i said im making zero effort to hide,” Kwon continued. “I go on walks and malls, no way none of CT hasnt run into me the past couple weeks.”
Yeah as i said im making zero effort to hide
I go on walks and malls, no way none of CT hasnt run into me the past couple weeks
— Do Kwon 🌕 (@stablekwon) September 26, 2022
Those tweets echo similar denials made last week. There, Kwon explicitly rejected claims he was “on the run” and claimed he’s in “full cooperation” with any government agency interested in communicating with him.
I am not “on the run” or anything similar – for any government agency that has shown interest to communicate, we are in full cooperation and we don’t have anything to hide
— Do Kwon 🌕 (@stablekwon) September 17, 2022
“We don’t have anything to hide,” Kwon said.
Riiight.