Key Takeaways
- Shin is accused of allegedly making unfair profits from issuing in-house tokens LUNA and TerraUSD and also faces charges of breach of duty.
- South Korean prosecutors have also raided the headquarters of Chai Corporation, the payment tech company Shin founded.
South Korean authorities probing Terraform Labs have frozen around $104.4 million from co-founder Shin Hyun-Seong based on suspicion of unfair profits. According to local media reports, the Seoul Southern District Court froze the allegedly stolen funds until further investigations are underway.
District Court approved the decision to freeze Shin’s asset worth over $104 million based on a request from the prosecutors. South Korean authorities accuse the co-founder of allegedly making unfair profits of around 140 billion Korean won with LUNA cryptocurrency that he attained before the official issuance without proper disclosure to regular investors.
Shin is under probe by South Korean authorities for allegedly making unfair profits from issuing in-house tokens LUNA and TerraUSD (UST). He also faces charges of breach of duty, in which he is accused of using the personal information of the customers at Chai Corporation, the payments tech firm that he established, to promote Terra’s cryptocurrencies.
“Prosecutors suspect that Chai Corporation leaked customer payment information to Terraform Labs without permission in the process of launching the Terra payment service in 2018,” according to a statement. As part of an ongoing probe, South Korean prosecutors have also raided the headquarters of Chai Corp.Officials raided Daniel Shin’s home in July as part of the same investigation.
Earlier this month, South Korean prosecutors requested Shin to appear in court as part of an investigation into Terraform Lab’s collapse. Ever since the unprecedented collapse of Terra’s algorithmic UST stablecoin and sister LUNA cryptocurrency in May, South Korean authorities have been targeting its founder, Do Kwon, and other Terra associates.
On September 14, the South Korean Court issued a warrant for arrest for Kwon and his five associates after Kwon, a South Korean citizen, violated the country’s capital markets law after prosecutors deemed Terraform’s Luna cryptocurrency, now Luna Classic, security. The defunct stablecoin issuer has, however, rubbished the accusations.
Earlier this week, Do Kwon published a thread of tweets reinstating that there were no fraudulent activities involved with the project. Kwon claimed he is making “zero efforts to hide” and is willing to cooperate with any government agency that wants to communicate.