South Korea Bans Terra’s Developers from Leaving the Country

There have been many consequences of the collapse of Terra, not only for the crypto universe and for its investors, but also for the creators of the project. Terraform Labs, the company behind the project, has been investigated by the authorities as well as Do Kwon, the founder of Terra, has been accused of money laundering.

Now, the authorities have issued an order preventing one of Terra's key designers from leaving the country. It has not yet been established whether the designer in question planned to flee the country before the blocking order was issued.

A former Terra developer, Daniel Hong, said on Twitter that the Korean government imposed an exit ban for all former Terra employees and developers like him had not been notified of the travel embargo. He said, “[…] tbh people being treated as potential criminals like this is absolutely outrageous and unacceptable."

Financial and Securities Crimes Investigation team of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor’s Office imposed an exit ban on one of the key members, Mr. A, as referred by South Korean media, as part of its investigation.

According to a South Korean media report, this designer previously told them that he spoke with Do Kwon, the CEO of Terraform Labs, who allegedly told him that he had "earned enough money to buy an island." This team member also told reporters that Kwon secretly sold the cryptocurrency to institutions to raise large amounts of money.

Meanwhile, new research has indicated that the Terra crash may have been an inside job, as the wallet identified as an “attacker” for generating a transaction that caused the crash was maintained by Terraform Labs. On top of that, Terraform Labs has been accused of laundering $4.8 million through a South Korean shell corporation.

After launching investigations into the Terra crash, authorities are now shifting the focus to people linked to the Terra developer team.

The fact that the creator of Terra, Do Kwon, is currently in Singapore could have influenced this decision. This may have posed some legal challenges for the researchers as they try to figure out what exactly happened when Terra collapsed.