Crypto fraudster sentenced for 15 years prison over $40 billion fraud

A South Korean national and former crypto entrepreneur had been had been sentenced to jail for an ‘epic’ fraud.

Do Kwon, was co-founder of Singapore-based Terraform Labs, which developed the TerraUSD and Luna digital coins,reports BBC.

United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, announced on December 11,2025 that Do Hyeong Kwon was sentenced to 15 years in prison for committing wire fraud and conspiring to commit securities fraud, commodities fraud, and wire fraud.

While his main fraud centered around Terraform Labs PTE, Ltd. and the cryptocurrencies launched by Terraform.

He was behind two digital currencies that collapsed and lost an estimated $40billion (£30 billion) and had been sentenced to 15 years in prison by New York judge.

Victims of the scam said, the 34-year-old financial technology whiz weaponized their trust to convince them that the investment, secretly propped up by cash infusions, was safe.

US District Judge Paul A Engelmayer, who handed down the sentence, said the Stanford graduate had repeatedly lied to investors who trusted him with their money.

"This was a fraud on an epic, generational scale," said judge during Thursday's December 11,2025 court hearing in Manhattan.

In the wake of his heinous acts, lots of victims came forward and shared how they had been scammed by kwon.

One of the victims also informed the judge in a letter that he contemplated suicide after his father lost his retirement money in the fraud scheme.

"In the history of federal prosecutions, there are few frauds that have caused as much harm as you have,” the judge added.

Kwon, who pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to defraud and wire fraud, expressed remorse to the judge.

Known as the “Cryptocurrency King,” Kwon had also admitted misleading investors about TerraUSD, a so-called stablecoin that was supposed to maintain its value against the US dollar.

"I have spent almost every waking moment of the last few years thinking of what I could have done differently and what I can do now to make things right," said Kwon.

Prosecutors alleged that when TerraUSD fell below its $1 peg in May 2021, Kwon told investors that a computer algorithm had restored its value.

According to court documents, Kwon had arranged for a trading firm to secretly buy millions of dollars of the coin to artificially boost its value.

Prosecutors said Kwon tried to rebuild Terraform Labs in Singapore before fleeing to the Balkans, and the scammer spent 17 months in jail in Montenegro after he got arrested on March 23, 2023, while travelling on a false passport.