South Korea freezes $104 million in assets belonging to Terra co-founder

South Korean prosecutors have reportedly obtained a court order to freeze assets worth about $104 million belonging to Terraform Labs co-founder Daniel Shin. Authorities allege that he unfairly profited from the sale of the LUNA crypto-currency at high prices before the token crashed. Daniel Shin has denied the allegations.

South Korean authorities freeze assets of Terraform Labs co-founder

The Seoul Southern District Court on Thursday reportedly approved a request by local prosecutors to freeze about $104 million in assets belonging to Terraform Labs co-founder Shin Hyun-seung, aka Daniel Shin. The pre-indictment freeze order is a precautionary measure to prevent a suspect from disposing of the proceeds of crime before trial.

Prosecutors accused Terra’s co-founder of making profits “unjust“of about $104 million by selling the pre-eminent crypto-currency LUNA, now known as luna classic (LUNC), without properly informing investors. However, Shin reportedly told prosecutors on Thursday that he did not sell the crypto-currency at its maximum price before the token crashed.

Hwang Suk-jin, a professor of information security at Dongguk University and a regular speaker on crypto-currency policy at South Korea’s National Assembly, was sentenced to three years in prison. quoted by Forkast as saying:

It’s a pre-mining problem. It’s because they didn’t make the proper disclosure when issuing the tokens.

The professor added that, for example, if investors “thought that 1,000 tokens were issued and in fact 10,000 were issued, investors inevitably suffer losses.“

Shin and Chai corp, a local payment technology company he founded, are currently being investigated for allegedly using customer information without their consent in the launch of Chai’s Terra payment services. The payment company was reportedly raided by local authorities on Thursday.

South Korean prosecutors have also been investigating the collapse of LUNA since May and have issued an arrest warrant for Kwon Do-Hyung, aka Do Kwon, who co-founded Terraform Labs with Shin. Interpol has also issued a red notice for him. Last month, South Korean authorities said they had frozen crypto assets belonging to Do Kwon. However, Do Kwon denied that the frozen coins were his.