South Korea’s prosecutors have reportedly obtained a court order to freeze assets worth about $104 million belonging to Terraform Labs co-founder Daniel Shin. The authorities allege that he unfairly profited from selling cryptocurrency LUNA at high prices before the token crashed. Shin has denied the allegation.
South Korean Authorities Freeze Terraform Labs Co-Founder’s Assets
The Seoul Southern District Court reportedly approved local prosecutors’ request Thursday to freeze about 140 billion won ($104 million) in assets belonging to Terraform Labs co-founder Shin Hyun-seung, aka Daniel Shin. The pre-indictment freeze order is a precautionary measure to prevent a suspect from disposing of criminal proceeds before a trial.
The prosecutors have accused the Terra co-founder of making “unfair” profits of about 140 billion Korean won by selling pre-issued cryptocurrency LUNA, now known as luna classic (LUNC), without proper disclosure to investors. However, Shin reportedly told the prosecutors Thursday that he did not sell the crypto at its peak price before the token crashed.
Hwang Suk-jin, professor of information security at Dongguk University and a regular speaker on crypto policy at South Korea’s National Assembly, was quoted by Forkast as saying:
It’s a problem with pre-mining. It’s because they did not make proper disclosure in issuing the tokens.
The professor added that for example, if investors “thought 1,000 tokens have been issued and in fact 10,000 have been issued, investors inevitably suffer losses.”
Shin and Chai corp., a local payments tech company he founded, are currently under investigation for allegedly using customer information without consent in launching Chai’s Terra payment services. The payments company was reportedly raided by local authorities on Thursday.
South Korean prosecutors have also been investigating the collapse of LUNA since May and have issued an arrest warrant for Kwon Do-Hyung, aka Do Kwon, who co-founded Terraform Labs with Shin. Interpol has also issued a Red Notice for him. Last month, South Korean authorities said they have frozen crypto assets belonging to Kwon. However, Kwon denied that the frozen coins were his.
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