Swiss police freeze millions of Do Kwon, TFL assets at request of SEC

Approximately $26 million in bitcoin and crypto assets belonging to Terraform Labs executives, including founder Do Kwon, have reportedly been frozen by authorities in Switzerland.

South Korean news outlet Digital Asset reported that the funds were taken from Zurich-based digital asset bank Sygnum at the request of US federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Sygnum made headlines back in 2017 when it announced it was the world’s first regulated digital asset bank. In February this year, the SEC said that 10,000 bitcoins were transferred from Terraform Labs and the Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) to personal wallets belonging to top execs.

“Since May 2022, defendants have sent the bitcoins in this wallet to Swiss financial institutions and turned it into fiat currency, withdrawing more than $100 million by the time of filing the lawsuit,” the SEC said.

In April this year, Digital Asset reported that the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office’s Financial Securities Crime Joint Investigation Division tracked down $100 million of bitcoin owned by LFG that had been converted into cash and deposited to Sygnum accounts.

Prosecutors in both the US and South Korea then requested that Sygnum freeze the assets. In response, Sygnum told Finbold in April that it had previously transferred “more than 70% of the Bitcoin-sale fiat proceeds into the escrow account of an international and to other reputable law firms.”

Indeed, Protos reported earlier that month that South Korean prosecutors accused Kwon of sending millions to a prominent law firm in the country right before the Terra/Luna ecosystem collapsed — suggesting the founder knew things were going awry.

Do Kwon sent law firm millions of dollars before Terra crash

Read more: Do Kwon registered company in Serbia weeks after Interpol arrest warrant

Along with Kwon, the recently frozen crypto assets are said to belong to former head of research at Terraform Labs, Nicholas Platias, and former Chai Corporation chief Han Chang-joon.

The latter was arrested with Kwon in Montenegro attempting to flee to Dubai. Last week, both were sentenced to four months in prison for document forgery.

The US and South Korea are both battling for Kwon to be extradited in order to face charges of fraud. According to the lead South Korean prosecutor working on the disgraced crypto founder’s case, Kwon will spend most of the rest of his life behind bars.

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shiba Inu: Here's How Much SHIB Can Rise in 2025

Image
Shiba Inu (SHIB) has a lot of expectations tied to its protocol. Countless individuals are invested in the project, in the hopes of becoming wealthy. However, is the asset going to deliver again? That remains a question only time will answer. At the moment, experts at Finder have given their opinion on how SHIB may perform till the year 2025. According to a survey, Shiba Inu (SHIB) is anticipated to reach $0.00004930 by the year 2025. The panel included 55 fintech specialists. Source: Finder Among the panelists, some are more optimistic about SHIB than others. According to Alexander Kuptsikevich from FxPro, SHIB could reach upto $0.0001 by 2025. Yet, Kuptsikevich did say that “It is unlikely to roar as it did in 2021.” Nonetheless, he did add that SHIB “can ride the future waves of the crypto market.” Will Shiba Inu actually reach $0.00004930? It should be noted that the survey was conducted in October 2022. Since then, SHIB has unveiled a lot more projects and initiatives that co...
Read more

Twitter thread shows Coinbase’s servers may be compromised

A Coinbase user recently shared a Coinbase-related scam story indicating that the exchange’s servers might be compromised . Jacob Canfield, a YouTube host and bitcoin enthusiast, claimed he received a text message about a changed two-factor authentication (2FA) setting on their Coinbase account. Shortly after, he got three phone calls from an individual claiming to be a Coinbase customer support representative. The calls originated from a San Francisco number, adding to the illusion of legitimacy. Holy shit. I just got attacked with one of the most complex scams in #crypto that I have seen to date. Please read if you use @coinbase. This just happened 15 minutes ago. THIS IS A WARNING FOR ALL COINBASE USERS! There has been some sort of a data breach. First, I… pic.twitter.com/aOVWLpAtY4 — Jacob Canfield (@JacobCanfield) June 13, 2023 During the calls, the impersonator asked whether Canfield was traveling outside the US and whether he had requested changes to the email ...
Read more

Bitcoin skeptic Charles Schwab bank deposits down 30% YoY, while BTC is up 50%

Image
The Charles Schwab Corp. (NYSE: SCHW)  is among the most affected financial firms facing a drop in customer deposits due to the increased interest rate environment in the United States, according to its Q3 2023 report. This presents a real challenge for a company that relies primarily on clients’ uninvested cash to fund its interest-earning businesses. Charles Schwab’s consumer bank deposits tumbled 28% year-over-year (YoY), causing its net interest revenue to drop 23.5% in the third quarter, which also negatively affected its quarterly revenue of $4.61 billion (-16.2% from Q2). A recent post on X (Twitter) by the event-driven trader Gurgavin Chandhoke highlights Charles Schwab as the financial company with more accumulated losses in bank deposits since Q3 2022. BANK DEPOSITS OVER THE LAST 1 YEAR BMO UP 21% AMERICAN EXPRESS 20% SCOTIABANK UP 9% CIBC UP 4% RBC UP 3% JP MORGAN DOWN 1.2% CITI DOWN 2.5% GOLDMAN DOWN 2.5% TD DOWN 2.6% BANK OF AMERICA DOWN 3% WELLS FARGO D...
Read more