Terra Co-Founder Daniel Shin Indicted in South Korea: Report

Terraform Labs co-founder Daniel Shin was among ten people indicted on multiple charges in South Korea on Tuesday, according to a report.

Shin and seven others were charged with illegal trading, while another two people were indicted for breach of trust. Prosecutors said at a press briefing that all those concerned are linked to Terra, Bloomberg reported.

Officials said they have already frozen 246.8 billion won ($184.7 million) in assets from the people indicted.

Shin co-founded Terraform Labs with Do Kwon in 2018. His lawyers have previously said he parted ways with the business in 2020, prior to the catastrophic 2022 meltdown of the Terra system. According to his LinkedIn profile, Shin then went on to set up payments company PortOne Global.

Prosecutors have been seeking his arrest since last year, but faced a roadblock when a court rejected their efforts to obtain an arrest warrant on the basis that Shin was unlikely to pose a flight risk. They renewed their push to arrest him in March this year.

In the press briefing on Tuesday, prosecutors reportedly called the entire Terra project a “fabrication.” Decrypt has contacted the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office for comment.

Global legal fallout

Legal fallout from the Terra disaster now spans several countries, following the arrest of Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon and chief financial officer Han Chang Joon in Montenegro last month.

Both the U.S. and South Korea have requested Kwon’s extradition, but he and Joon must first face charges of using forged passports in the country of their arrest.

In the meantime, Kwon has sought to have the charges brought against him by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dismissed, on the basis that tokens associated with Terra are not securities.

His claims got a boost on Monday, when a South Korean court decided that Terra Classic (LUNC)—the rebranded version of LUNA—is not a security.