The head of Terraform Labs’ business team who is said to be part of Do Kwon inner circle, is the first person to be arrested in connection with the collapse of Terra.
The first suspect in the collapse of the Terra blockchain ecosystem, according to South Korean police, has been apprehended after months of inquiry without a single arrest with the primary offender still on the loose taunting the enforcers on Twitter.
Yoo Mo, the leader of Terraform Labs’ business team, was detained, according to reports in Korean media on October 6. Later, Choi Sung-kook, the district attorney, provided Forkast with confirmation of the details.
On October 5, the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office allegedly issued a bench warrant for Yoo, accusing him of breaking the Capital Markets Act and engaging in fraud by influencing the price of the stablecoin TerraUSD (UST), now known as TerraUSD Classic (USTC). Authorities withheld information about the arrest, including the time.
Yoo’s arrest order was issued back in September, and the executive is thought to be a member of Terra’s cofounder Do Kwon’s inner circle. Interpol issued a Red Notice on September 26 asking law enforcement agencies all around the world to find and temporarily detain Do Kwon “pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action.”
The news follows South Korea’s earlier cancellation of Terra co-founder Do Kwon’s passport. Kwon has maintained his innocence and refuted claims that the government has frozen his cryptocurrency holdings worth 56.2 billion won ($39.6 million).
A Terraform Labs spokesman claimed that prosecutors in South Korea had broadened their concept of a security in response to demand from the public and that the prosecution against the company’s top management had turned political. Nearly a trillion dollars were lost in the crypto market after the $40 billion Terra ecosystem collapsed in May 2022.