Montenegrin official plans to extradite Do Kwon to the United States: Report
Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon will reportedly be extradited to the United States rather than South Korea to face criminal charges.
According to a Dec. 7 Wall Street Journal report citing people familiar with the matter, Justice Minister Andrej Milović in Montenegro plans to grant U.S. officials’ request for extradition. Kwon was arrested in Montenegro in March and sentenced to four months in prison for using falsified travel documents. He has also been charged in the U.S. and South Korea for his alleged role in the collapse of Terraform Labs.
Milović reportedly said the announcement would be made public “in a timely manner.” If extradited to the U.S., Kwon faces eight charges, including commodities fraud, securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud and engage in market manipulation related to his time at Terra. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also charged Kwon with “defrauding investors in crypto schemes” in February.
Related: Jury in Terraform Labs case shouldn’t decide whether crypto is a security — SEC
The collapse of Terraform Labs in May 2022 was one of the major events kicking off a cryptocurrency market downturn. TerraUSD (UST) depegged from the U.S. dollar, and many firms filed for bankruptcy, including Voyager Digital, BlockFi, Celsius Network and FTX.
Before his arrest in Montenegro, Kwon’s whereabouts had been largely unknown, with many speculating the Terraform Labs co-founder had been based in Singapore. Though he will reportedly face officials in the United States first, some legal experts haven’t ruled out that Kwon could still be charged in South Korea as well. He has denied committing fraud.
Magazine: Terra collapsed because it used hubris for collateral — Knifefight
The state Department of Environmental Conservation botched the permitting process, but it still gets a do-over.
The UK economy grew by 0.1% between July and September, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
However, despite the small positive GDP growth recorded in the third quarter, the economy shrank by 0.1% in September, dragging down overall growth for the three month period.
The growth was also slower than what had been expected by experts and a drop from the 0.5% growth between April and June, the ONS said.
Economists polled by Reuters and the Bank of England had forecast an expansion of 0.2%, slowing from the rapid growth seen over the first half of 2024 when the economy was rebounding from last year’s shallow recession.
And the metric that Labour has said it is most focused on – the GDP per capita, or the economic output divided by the number of people in the country – also fell by 0.1%.
Pic: Reuters
Reacting to the figures, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “Am I satisfied with the numbers published today? Of course not. I want growth to be stronger, to come sooner, and also to be felt by families right across the country.”
“It’s why in my Mansion House speech last night, I announced some of the biggest reforms of our pension system in a generation to unlock long term patient capital, up to £80bn to help invest in small businesses and scale up businesses and in the infrastructure needs,” Ms Reeves later told Sky News in an interview.
“We’re four months into this government. There’s a lot more to do to turn around the growth performance of the last decade or so.”
New economy data tests chancellor’s growth plan
The sluggish services sector – which makes up the bulk of the British economy – was a particular drag on growth over the past three months. It expanded by 0.1%, cancelling out the 0.8% growth in the construction sector.
The UK’s GDP for the most recent quarter is lower than the 0.7% growth in the US and 0.4% in the Eurozone.
The figures have pushed the UK towards the bottom of the G7 growth table for the third quarter of the year.
It was expected to meet the same 0.2% growth figures reported in Germany and Japan – but fell below that after a slow September.
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The pound remained stable following the news, hovering around $1.267. The FTSE 100, meanwhile, opened the day down by 0.4%.
The Bank of England last week predicted that Ms Reeves’s first budget as chancellor will increase inflation by up to half a percentage point over the next two years, contributing to a slower decline in interest rates than previously thought.
Announcing a widely anticipated 0.25 percentage point cut in the base rate to 4.75%, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) forecast that inflation will return “sustainably” to its target of 2% in the first half of 2027, a year later than at its last meeting.
The Bank’s quarterly report found Ms Reeves’s £70bn package of tax and borrowing measures will place upward pressure on prices, as well as delivering a three-quarter point increase to GDP next year.
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