Swiss Prosecutors Seize $26M in Digital Assets From Do Kwon

Swiss prosecutors have seized about $26 million in digital assets and U.S. dollars belonging to Terraform Labs (TFL) imprisoned co-founder Do Kwon.

A Korean media outlet exclusively reported on June 24 that Kwon had assets stored in Switzerland-based digital asset bank Sygnum.

Kwon Seized Assets

With Kwon facing criminal prosecution in South Korea and the U.S., investigators have been looking to trace his assets. The Swiss prosecutors froze the assets acting on the request of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Federal Prosecutors of New York.

While South Korean investigators had earlier said that none of Kwon’s assets was in the country, reports later emerged that he saved his digital assets in Sygnum Bank.

Sygnum markets itself as the first digital assets bank in the world and has branches in Switzerland, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi.

According to reports, the frozen assets are not only for Kwon. TFL corporation, former CEO of Chai Corporation Han Chang-Joon, and former TFL research lead Nicholas Platias also own part of the assets.

Frozen Assets Double Previous Estimates

The amount of frozen assets is twice the earlier estimates by prosecutors. South Korean prosecutors told Bloomberg that Kwon and his acolytes held over $13 million in Sygnum.

U.S. and Swiss investigators likely found other assets that were not earlier identified. The U.S. SEC had claimed that Kwon sent 10,000 Bitcoin to a Swiss account.

With some of the assets linked to the Terra Luna failure now frozen, victims of the incident that wiped about $40 billion off the crypto market might hope for compensation for their losses.

Kwon Sentenced in Montenegro

Meanwhile, authorities in Montenegro have imprisoned Kwon for four months for falsifying travel documents. They sentenced the disgraced founder along with former TFL CFO Chang-Joon Han.

The sentence includes the 85 days that they had already spent in custody. Although both pleaded not guilty to the charges, the Montenegrin Basic Court found them guilty.

With the short jail term, Kwon might soon find himself on the way to South Korea or the U.S., as both countries are seeking to extradite him to face criminal charges.