The UST Restitution Group (URG), a Discord community with 4,400 members, has been searching for Terra co-founder Do Kwon’s whereabouts following the crash of the Terra ecosystems’ cryptocurrencies.
Members of the group Discord community are searching the internet for leads and sharing them with the group in an apparent effort to find Kwon after becoming frustrated with the lack of results from law enforcement officials. Members have speculated that he would live in countries like Russia, Dubai, and Azerbaijan, or even on a yacht.
Despite substantial actions taken by South Korean authorities to bring Kwon to justice, including the issuance of an arrest warrant by a Seoul court on September 14 and an Interpol Red Notice to law enforcement agencies worldwide in response to the warrant, they are still making an attempt to do so.
On May 16, URG was established as a chatroom for Terra ecosystem investors and to assist in the filing of legal actions on behalf of its members to recoup money lost from TerraUSD Classic (USTC), the ostensibly stablecoin that depegged from the US dollar.
According to a Financial Times report dated October 19, one member of URG, Kan Hyung-suk, will shortly be flying to Dubai, where many in the organization think Kwon is hiding. According to another URG member who was quoted:
“Dubai is friendly to crypto, very international (he would not stand out), and has limited extradition treaties in place. It would seem like the best fit for the 3-5 hour timezone shift apparent in the data.”
Since May 26, Hyung-suk, a 26-year-old software engineer who previously worked for Terraform Labs, the organization responsible for the development of the Terra blockchain, has been a member of the URG.
Kwon, who gained notoriety after the collapse of the Terra ecosystem, has insisted he is not “on the run” and that he is fully complying with all government authorities attempting to contact him.
Laura Shin, a crypto-journalist and the host of the Unchained podcast, spoke with Kwon on October 19 and asked him a number of questions on recent news topics.
Regarding his current circumstances, Kwon advised that he left for Singapore after the Terra crash out of worries for his privacy and safety. Citing, as an illustration, the fact that his flat was broken into, he said:
“It’s not in the interest of being on the run or something like that, that I don’t want to disclose where I live. It’s just that every time the location where I live becomes known, it becomes almost impossible for me to live there.”
According to a Terraform Labs spokeswoman, the accusations against Kwon are “extremely politicized,” and in response to pressure from the public, South Korean prosecutors have changed the meaning of financial securities. During his discussion with Shin, Kwon echoed this idea.
