Terraform Labs CEO Charged with 8 Counts

US prosecutors in New York have charged Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon with eight counts of fraud, including commodities fraud, securities fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to defraud and engage in market manipulation.

This comes just hours after his reported arrest in Montenegro. The US government believes it has jurisdiction to prosecute Kwon due to statements he made in a televised interview that were transmitted to the Southern District of New York.

These statements allegedly misrepresented the extent to which the Terra blockchain had been adopted by users. The remaining four charges stem from Kwon’s purported involvement in trading strategies that were designed to manipulate the market price of the TerraClassicUSD stablecoin (USTC) and false claims about the coin’s effectiveness in keeping its peg with the US dollar.