South Korean prosecutors have indicted Terraform Labs co-founder Daniel Shin and nine others on charges of fraud, breach of trust, embezzlement, and violations of capital markets law.
The charges come after a months-long investigation into the collapse of the Terra ecosystem, which caused the loss of tens of billions of dollars in investor wealth. The prosecutor’s office alleges that the accused parties may have earned illegal profits of nearly $350 million (460 billion won).
Shin was particularly accused of promoting an unviable product and deceiving investors, leading to significant financial losses. The prosecution has seized assets valued at approximately $180 million from the accused parties.
According to another report, Shin’s legal team, however, denies the charges and asserts that he terminated his involvement with the Terra project in 2020. They claim that the prosecutors’ accusation that Shin ignored financial authorities’ warnings and continued to participate in the business is inaccurate.
On April 24, 2023, DeFi Planet reported that a district court in South Korea cleared Shin of charges related to security violations. The court ruled that LUNA, the native token of the Terra-LUNA ecosystem, is not a security. The prosecution had accused Shin of fraudulent transactions involving LUNA, which violated the Capital Market Act and constituted property crimes such as fraud.
However, the court rejected the prosecution’s plea to seize Shin’s assets, citing insufficient evidence to demonstrate that the assets in question were obtained through illegal means or criminal activities.
Shin is presently not in detention, as a South Korean court denied a request to detain him in December because the court believed that he was not likely to destroy evidence or flee. Until his trial, he will remain out of custody.
Whereas, Do Kwon, the co-founder of Terraform, was arrested in Montenegro recently for purportedly attempting to travel with forged documents, which included a counterfeit Costa Rican passport. He was officially charged last week.
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