Terraform Employee’s Arrest is Unwarranted, Judge Says

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  • Yoo Mo, a key Ter­raform employ­ee, was accused of using a manip­u­la­tive bot program
  • His return to South Korea and coop­er­a­tion with pros­e­cu­tors aid­ed the judge’s decision

A key Ter­raform staff mem­ber was released from inter­ro­ga­tion after a South Kore­an court judge deter­mined there’s lit­tle rea­son he should be held.

Local out­lets Yon­hap and SBS report­ed on Fri­day that the court dis­missed an ear­li­er-issued arrest war­rant for the employ­ee Yoo Mo. Judge Hong Jin-pyo of the Seoul South­ern Dis­trict Court report­ed­ly con­sid­ers detain­ment as unnecessary.

Yoo Mo, Terra’s head of gen­er­al affairs, alleged­ly used bot pro­grams to manip­u­late the firm’s sta­ble­coin UST, pri­or to its depeg from the dol­lar and lead to the Ter­ra ecosystem’s col­lapse. Sub­se­quent­ly, Terra’s col­lapse took down mul­ti­ple cen­tral­ized com­pa­nies like Cel­sius, Voy­ager and Three Arrows Capital.

He was the first Ter­raform Labs’ employ­ee to be arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with the incident.

Despite the accu­sa­tions, Yoo is cur­rent­ly not a want­ed indi­vid­ual. The fact that he didn’t deny oper­at­ing and run­ning the bot pro­gram in dis­pute was a crit­i­cal fac­tor in Judge Hong’s decision. 

Oth­er key con­sid­er­a­tions that the judge took into account were whether Luna was an “invest­ment con­tract” under the cap­i­tal mar­kets law, the extent of Yoo’s com­plic­i­ty in the mat­ter and that he vol­un­tar­i­ly returned to South Korea after a war­rant for his arrest was issued. 

The report didn’t state where Yoo returned from, but it is believed the war­rants were issued for Ter­raform employ­ees who were and still may be in Singapore.

Still, the Judge declared that the crime of caus­ing mas­sive cus­tomer loss­es was seri­ous and that some charges have been clarified.

South Kore­an pros­e­cu­tors are report­ed­ly now con­sid­er­ing whether to reap­ply for an arrest war­rant for Yoo. They’re also has­ten­ing moves to chase Ter­raform CEO Do Kwon, who claims he isn’t on the run

On Wednes­day, the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs ordered Do Kwon to hand over his pass­port with­in 14 days. The doc­u­ment would be auto­mat­i­cal­ly inval­i­dat­ed if he doesn’t comply.

The Seoul prosecutor’s office and a Ter­raform rep­re­sen­ta­tive didn’t return Block­works’ request for com­ment by press time.


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  • Shali­ni Nagarajan

    Block­works

    Reporter

    Shali­ni is a cryp­to reporter from Ban­ga­lore, India who cov­ers devel­op­ments in the mar­ket, reg­u­la­tion, mar­ket struc­ture, and advice from insti­tu­tion­al experts. Pri­or to Block­works, she worked as a mar­kets reporter at Insid­er and a cor­re­spon­dent at Reuters News. She holds some bit­coin and ether. Reach her at [email pro­tect­ed]

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