KEY POINTS
- The bails posted by Kwon and his associate were accepted by the Montenegro Basic Court on Saturday
- Montenegrin authorities arrested Kwon in March for attempting to travel with fake documents
- He has pleaded not guilty to charges of falsifying his passport and travel documents
Days after the High Court of Montenegro revoked Do Kwon’s team’s bail proposal, a primary court accepted the bail requests of the crypto executive and his associate Han Chang-joon, suggesting that the infamous crypto kingpin is once again out of jail.
The bails worth 400,000 euros or approximately $436,000, posted by 32 years old Kwon and 37 years old Chang-joon, were accepted by the Montenegro Basic Court on Saturday, according to the crypto executive’s lawyer Branko Anđelić.
Presiding Judge of the Basic Court Ivana Becić decided to grant the defendants’ proposal to stay in the apartment of their legal counsel Branko Anđelić along with Kwon’s girlfriend until the end of the legal proceedings, a local media outlet reported over the weekend.
Montenegro prosecutors now have three days to appeal against the court’s ruling after it decided to release the defendants from detention.
The latest decision of the Montenegro Basic Court on Kwon’s bail proposal came as a surprise since the High Court overturned the lower court’s initial decision on the crypto executives’ bail proposal.
The Montenegrin Basic Court approved the bail proposal of Kwon’s team on May 12 but prosecutors immediately appealed the decision and the High Court overturned the initial court ruling on May 24.
At the time, the High Court agreed with the prosecutors’ concern that the bail is not a guarantee that the arrested crypto executives would not flee the country as soon as they are released from pre-trial detention, with court spokeswoman Marija Rakovic noting that “the Basic Court should now make another decision, taking into account what the High Court ruled.”
Despite being on Interpol’s red notice, Kwon maintained over the past few months that he was not on the run and was “making zero efforts to hide.” But he reportedly left Singapore in September and landed in Dubai.
I am not “on the run” or anything similar – for any government agency that has shown interest to communicate, we are in full cooperation and we don’t have anything to hide
— Do Kwon 🌕 (@stablekwon) September 17, 2022
His whereabouts were tracked by South Korean authorities who discovered he was in the Balkans last December.
On March 24, the Terraform Labs (TFL) co-founder and CEO was arrested at the Podgorica Airport along with his associate Chang-joon, with the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office in the country’s capital accusing both of forging their travel documents.
Both the U.S. and South Korea had requested Montenegro for Kwon’s extradition but the decision is not out yet. Aside from being a wanted fugitive in his home country South Korea, Kwon is facing several charges in Singapore and the United States.
In fact, just hours after news broke that the TFL CEO was captured in Montenegro, prosecutors in the United States filed eight separate charges against him, which included securities fraud, commodities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud and engage in market manipulation.
