South Korean authorities have ordered crypto exchange OKX and Kucoin to freeze 3,313 Bitcoin (BTC) reportedly connected to Do Kwon, the co-founder of Terra blockchain developer Terraform Labs.
Kwon reportedly created a new wallet on September 15, a day after a Korean court issued an arrest warrant for the fugitive cryptocurrency founder. Kwon is currently on the run from Korean authorities in the securities violation case.
3,313 BTC were transferred to the KuCoin and OKX exchange after a new Bitcoin wallet called Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) was launched, claims the crypto-analytics group Cryptoquant.
KuCoin received 1,354 BTC in total, all of which were frozen right away. OKX, however, allegedly disregarded government requests. As a result, 1,959 BTC in total could not be blocked and was free to be transferred to other platforms.
Many people were taken aback by the removal of BTC from the LFG wallet because it goes against Kwon’s earlier assurances that all of the BTC in the tLFG reserves had been utilized to defend the TerraUSD Classic peg.
Despite several reports of numerous investigations in South Korea, Kwon asserted that neither he nor any authorities had contacted him prior to the issuing of his arrest order on September 14. Kwon reportedly left Singapore as soon as the arrest warrant was made public, requiring officials to turn to Interpol for assistance.
Kwon’s position as a wanted person was confirmed by Interpol’s red notice issued against him on September 26. Nevertheless, despite all the evidence and a global notice against him, Kwon occasionally tweets that he is innocent.
The $60 billion Terra ecosystem collapse sparked a crypto market crash which was already in trouble due to tightening monetary policies and led the industry to lose around a trillion dollars. Kwon continued to get support from some elements of the community even after such mayhem, maintaining his innocence and that he had lost everything in the collapse.