South Korean Authorities Extend Terra Probe, Daniel Shin’s Home Raided

South Korean authorities extend Terra’s probe after Daniel Shin’s home got raided as a part of the ongoing investigation of the Terra collapse so let’s read more today in our cryptocurrency latest news.

A probe into the possible illegal activities behind Terra and the LUNA token only got deeper after a raid on the company’s co-founder’s home. South Korean authorities extend the probe as they visited the offices of the mobile payment app Chain which was also founded by Shin in 2019. Chai was marketed as the first mobile payments app that utilized the Terra blockchain to enable anyone that has a bank account to make cheaper transactions for the local businesses in Korea.

Kwon and Shin launched Terraform Labs in 2018 with the goal to become payment giants such as PayPal. Later that year, the pair raised $32 million and in 2019 an ICO yielded $62 million. Shin then stepped down from his position as CEO and reduced his stake in the company to focus on creating Chia with Do Kwont taking control of the business. A spokesperson for the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ office noted that the raid was performed on Shin’s home and added that two other companies affiliated with Chai were raided as well. The raids were a part of an ongoing investigation into allegations that Kwon caused the crash of TErra.

Unlike other stablecoins backed by fiat currencies like the EUR or USD, the value of UST was maintained by an algorithm that burned the token to mint new UST. LUNA and UST were the 9^th and 10^th biggest crypto assets by market cap before they collapsed which ended up losing $55 billion in investors’ money alogn with them. A team of investigators visited the offices of seven exchanges like Bithumb, Coinone, and Upbit to seize transaction records and other materials. The authoriteis planned to analyze these materialize and determine the actual size of the damage suffered. Prosecutors are also looking into Kwon who oppositely resided in Singapore, and whether he dodged taxes by moving profits from crypto transactions to an offshore account.

South Korean authoriteis imposed a ban on key team members of Terraform Labs with 15 former and current employees prevented from leaving the country due to the ongoing investigation. Before that, the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ office investigation team, summoned former employees of Terraform Labs that were involved in the initial development of the ecosystem in 2019. one of the employees revealed that at the time the team had doubts about the stablecoin design but Kwon ignored their warnings.