While the South Korean prosecutor's office is actively attempting to seize the assets and property of Terra employees, an advertisement for the collapsed company is shown during the first day of Major League Baseball in Washington, D.C.
The arrest of Do Kwon in Montenegro seems to have triggered investigations against other Terra employees. As we covered earlier, the South Korean prosecutor's office's second attempt at requesting an arrest warrant for Daniel Shin was refused by the Seoul Southern District Court. Now the prosecutor's office is actively engaged in the seizure of assets and property belonging to Terra employees.
On April 3, the South Korean news agency KBS reported that the property of eight Terra employees was seized by the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor's Office. The seized property is estimated at 210 billion won, the majority of which is real estate. The prosecutor's office plans to prevent the sale of the assets during the trial and retain funds for the victims.
"We are still investigating the property ownership status of the suspects, and we plan to carry out collection preservation for the confirmed property in the future in order to recover the proceeds of crime and recover damages," - said the representative of law enforcement.
An interesting thing worth noting is another action by the South Korean Prosecutor's Office. On April 7, the KBS news agency reported that the criminal earnings of Terra employees were estimated at 414.5 billion won, equaling $314.2 million. At the same time, Do Kwon's illicit earnings are estimated to total 91.4 billion won, or $69 million.
The confiscation of property is the first step in returning illegal income, according to KBS. However, investigations by local authorities revealed that Kwon owns no property "that can be collected or preserved."
"It was discovered that there is almost no property belonging to CEO Kwon in Korea,"- said Representative of the Prosecutor's Office.
This led authorities to the conclusion that Kwon had converted his illegal funds into bitcoins with the help of foreign exchanges. Therefore, the local prosecutor's office appealed to the Binance exchange with a request to cease any operations related to Do Kwon.
In a comment to Cointelegraph on the subject, Binance confirmed their cooperation with South Korean law enforcement.
"We provided Korean LE authorities with the requested assistance. Since we cannot comment on ongoing LE investigations, for any further comment please reach out to the prosecutors."
Although estimates of Kwon's assets' exact value vary, it is likely that the regulatory authorities and the biggest players in the cryptocurrency industry will be able to withdraw or retain these funds.
Despite the fact that Kwon is currently in custody, and the ongoing active investigations, Terra is still widely advertised. Fans observed a Terra advertising banner during a Major League Baseball game in Washington D.C.
The ad's presence can probably be explained as part of an ongoing partnership between the Terra Community Trust (TCT) and the Washington Nationals MLB. According to an announcement on February 9, 2022, the exclusive Terra Club zone became available to fans, and UST tokens could also become an official means of payment in the National Park.
Given how many people were impacted by the fall of UST, advertising Terra appears to be a very questionable move for the reputation of the Washington Nationals MLB, despite the partnership agreement. It's worth noting that many fans might interpret the banner to imply that Terra is a good investment.
A good example of this is the tweet of a user who took a picture of a Terra ad and wrote that it looks like a solid company, worth checking out. However, the credibility of the company may not be looked into by everyone.
Despite the collapse of UST, other Terra projects continue to live on. For example, on March 31, a decentralized exchange, Terraport, was launched. The project was later hacked, and on March 10, hackers managed to withdraw approximately $2 million worth of crypto assets from the exchange's liquidity wallet.
We can only assume that there will be multiple reports about Terra and its employees in the near future, so we'll keep Observing!