South Korea freezes $39.6 million in crypto belonging to Terra founder Do Kwon, but Kwon says it isn’t his

South Korean prosecutors have reportedly frozen $39.6 million in crypto assets belonging to the founder of Terraform and the creator of the failed Terra blockchain project Do Kwon. The announcement comes less than a month after the country’s authorities issued an arrest warrant for Kwon following the collapse of LUNA cryptocurrency.

However, Kwon denied the claim and refuted the reports about his funds getting frozen. In a statement, he said the report is a “falsehood”, and “I don’t know whose funds they’ve frozen.”

Today, there were reports that South Korean authorities also began a proceeding to cancel his passport. South Korean foreign ministry gave Kwon 12 days to return his passport or face having the document canceled, CNBC reported. He has up to October 19 to turn his passport in.

Linked to a dramatic $60 billion crypto collapse, Kwon has been running away from the authorities since the manhunt began about two months ago. There were reports that police have also arrested one person in connection with Kwon’s operations.

It all started in May when the sudden collapse of Luna and TerraUSD roiled crypto markets around the world. Terra Luna, the cryptocurrency associated with TerraUSD (UST), suddenly collapsed overnight losing 99% of its value as crypto investors lost their life savings.

Kwon, who is also the founder of blockchain platform Terraform Labs, has been accused of fraud by crypto investors in the wake of the collapse.

Terra, which ranked among the top 10 most valuable cryptocurrencies, dropped from its $120 peak last month to below $1 on May 13.  Terra’s luna UST is a controversial stablecoin designed to support UST’s one-to-one peg with the U.S. dollar. The implosion of the Terra platform led to combined losses of approximately $60 billion between UST and its sister cryptocurrency luna.

According to a report from CryptoSlate, Do Kwon is hiding from the public eye after an unknown person knocked on his front door asking for him. Kwon quickly fled the scene and local police have now opened an investigation. Another post on Twitter confirmed the report saying that Kwon’s spouse has now requested police protection.