The Montenegrin Prime Minister discovered that he had invested in the Do Kown cryptocurrency

Prime Minister of Montenegro Milojko Spajic speaks at a press conference during the summit of leaders of the Western Balkans and the European Union in Montenegro May 16. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon, currently detained in Montenegro, has once again been thrown into the center of a political scandal with the discovery that the current Montenegrin prime minister was an early investor in the cryptocurrency company behind the massive collapse of TerraUSD and Luna in 2022.

A US court document filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed that Prime Minister Milojko Spajic, who took office in October last year, invested $75,000 in Singapore-based Terraform Labs in April 2018 to acquire $750,000 Luna coins, according to a report by Vijesti, a Montenegrin media outlet, on Tuesday.

The court document listed 81 individuals and entities who made investments in the failed cryptocurrency company from 2018 to 2021.

Do Kwon, co-founder of Terraform Labs, is escorted by police officers in Podgorica, Montenegro, on March 23. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

Founded in April 2018, Terraform Labs was behind the Luna and TerraUSD cryptocurrencies, which once reached $2 billion in market capitalization when the latter became the fifth-largest stablecoin in 2021 before both tokens collapsed catastrophically in May 2022. Earth-Moon collapse is estimated to have occurred. having eliminated nearly $40 billion in market value.

Spajic had previously claimed that Das Capital SG, a Singapore firm he worked for from 2017 to 2020, invested in Terraform Labs and was a victim of the fraud scheme, responding to allegations that it received funds from Kwon ahead of the US general election. ‘Last year.

However, the SEC document reportedly revealed that Spajic made the investment personally, and not through a legal entity, raising suspicions of false disclosures.

It is not yet known whether he profited from investing in Luna coins.

Kwon, the co-founder of Terraform Labs, was arrested in Montenegro last March for holding a fake passport after months on the run. The disgraced cryptocurrency tycoon recently agreed to a settlement with the SEC totaling $4.47 billion, including fines for his company.

Kwon is also facing charges in Korea, which is seeking his extradition along with the United States, but his destination has yet to be decided as Montenegro’s supreme court overturned a lower court’s decision to extradite the Korea international in March.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]

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