Prime Minister Milojko Spajić admitted yesterday that he was not telling the truth and confirmed this week's "Vijesti" writing - he personally invested 75.000 dollars in Do Kwon's Teraform Labs, a company that failed in four years and with it over 40 billion euros, not a company in which was working then, as he claimed until now.
He also admitted to reporters that he had luna tokens, he explained how he allegedly sold some and bought other cryptocurrencies, and that some became worthless.
"As for the luna token, it was sold and I bought other cryptocurrencies that I reported... or they became worthless at some point and their value became zero, so it's a redundant question," Spajic said, answering the reporter TV Vijesti, which asked him why he did not report luna tokens to the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption.
In April 2018, for $75.000, Spajić became one of the first to own 750.000 luna tokens at a price of 10 cents, according to documents from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the words of a financial expert contacted by "Vijesti".
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From the Prime Minister's statement comes an indirect admission that he did not report to the Agency for Prevention of Corruption that he owns luna tokens in at least four reports.
On December 4, 2020, he was elected as the Minister of Finance and Social Welfare in the Government of Zdravko Krivokapić, and then he became obliged by law to declare assets and income.
In his first two such reports, the one from December 31, 2020, less than a month after he became the Minister of Finance and Social Welfare, and in the regular report for 2020 from March 28, 2021, Spajić reported that he had one cryptocurrency , bitcoin, worth 150.000 euros, and not more than he said yesterday. He didn't mention Luna.
The variant that he sold all luna tokens from their purchase in April 2018 until the submission of his first report to ASK on December 31, 2020, and therefore did not report them, would be possible if it were not for the second part of his statement yesterday - "or are became worthless".
If his statement is true, it means that he owned at least a portion of luna tokens until mid-May 2022 when Do Kwon's crypto pyramid scheme collapsed and the value of luna tokens approached zero. And until then, he had to report them to KAS in these first two reports and in two more, submitted on July 2, 2021, and March 31, 2022, for the year 2021. And it's not.
Only on April 28, 2023, in the annual report after the termination of the function of the Minister of Finance and Social Welfare (April 29, 2022), he reported that he had more cryptocurrencies - BTC (bitcoin), ETH (ethereum), BNB (binance), USDT (tether), “etc”. There is no moon there either.
If he sold some of the luna tokens and then bought these other cryptocurrencies for them, it is not clear how, because in a report dated May 30, 2022 he stated that he only had bitcoin, and luna became “worthless” in the middle of that month. Or he sold the tokens before the crash, and failed to report the purchase of these other cryptocurrencies in that report.
Spajić was obliged to report his remaining "worthless" luna tokens in all five subsequent reports he submitted to KAS - in May 2022, a month after he ceased to be a minister, a year after that, after taking office as a member of parliament and of the Prime Minister, and in the regular report for 2023 from March of this year. Why? Because it is not true that "their value has become zero", as the Prime Minister says.
The Luna token, floated by Do Kwon's firm to raise money for research and development of the Tera blockchain, and rebranded as Luna Classic (LUNC) after the May 2022 crash, was worth US$0,00009158 yesterday.
"The report contains data on the property and income of a public official... and especially on... shares and shares in a legal entity and other securities", it says in the old Law on Prevention of Corruption, but also in the new one that has been valid since ten days ago. In the definition of property in the current law, "securities and other documents proving property rights, including property in electronic or digital form" are also mentioned.
The law does not prescribe an amount above which securities must be declared, as is the case with movable property (5.000 in the old law, 10.000 in the new law). This means that the Prime Minister is obliged to declare them as his assets, regardless of their value.
I hope the Prime Minister will fulfill his legal obligation in the first next report.
Yesterday, Spajić manipulatively tried to refute the logic of the question "Vijesti" from the part titled "Spajić... lost 90 million dollars?" in the June 18 article.
The title was in the form of a question, because the Prime Minister and the Government Public Relations Service did not answer how many luna tokens he had just before the collapse.
When asked by a journalist from TV Vijesta whether the value of his tokens was at one point 90 million euros, Spajić said yesterday:
"You said in the headline in your respected media company that I lost 90 million euros investing 75.000 dollars. It's the same as at a betting shop if you invest a euro and your potential profit is 600 euros, someone tells you, shame on you, you lost 600 euros. That was your logic, so with that logic, feel free to go back to the editor and tell him that this economic logic is non-existent in economic sciences. The bet was $75.000 and that was it.
Let's not go into what Spajić's economic logic was to invest in Do Kwon's startup, but his betting example yesterday offends common sense.
That would be the same as saying that he does not expect to be able to cash in his 10 Goldman Sachs shares today, which he duly reports to ASK in every report, which he could have sold yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange for $4520,7. Or maybe tomorrow, or in a month at the then valid price. And it can because it's not a classic bet on, say, the result of a football match, so if you hit you win, if you don't, you lose. Because it is a security, and it is traded on stock exchanges.
Also, at any time since the beginning of luna token trading on exchanges, he could sell all or part of 750.000 tokens, which reached a value of close to 2022 million dollars in April 90. Because it is a digital security and not a bet in a bookmaker. If not, neither the SEC nor the court in New York would have dealt with Do Kwon and moon and night.
If he wanted to, just as he can cash out his Goldman Sachs shares every day, Spajić could have received more than the invested $75.000 for all the luna tokens right after the start of trading, because the price was higher than 10 cents. Or he could have taken $750.000 when the price was a dollar, or $7,5 million when the price was $10, or $75 million when the moon was $100, or close to $90 million when the price was over $119 . But he didn't sell. Or not everything.
If we go back to the prime minister's attempt to give an example from the betting shop, it seems that Spajić's logic in dealing with Do Kwon was not economic, but the "logic" of a gambler.
Every bettor knows that bookmakers offer online players before the end of the game to pay them a part of the amount they bet on, when the probability of the player winning it increases.
Let's say you invested the prime minister's euro that in last night's football match between France and the Netherlands, the Dutch will be the first to take a corner, that Simmons' goal will be canceled by VAR, that the French will shoot at the goal 11 times, that Griezmann will kick into the goal area in the 4th and 65 .minute, that there will be a total of six offsides. And somewhere until the 87th minute, you miraculously hit everything, except for the sixth offside. Then the bookmaker offers you 250 euros to cash immediately, instead of the prime minister's 600 euros, which you should take if one of the French or Dutch "falls asleep" behind the defense line once again until the end of the game. What would you do?
In Do Kwon's pyramid scheme, Spajić was waiting for the "sixth offside" that did not come. He was able to sell all his tokens every day before the crash. But it didn't. He did not take the invested $75.000, nor $750.000, nor $7,5 million, nor $75 million, nor $90 million.
But that's his problem, because I guess that initial $75.000 was his.
The problem for all citizens in Montenegro will be if Spajić applies his gambler's logic to taxpayers' money and state property, which he temporarily got to manage when he was elected prime minister.
I sincerely hope that the apocalyptic comment of our portal reader under the text "Spajić was among the first investors, lost 90 million dollars?" will not come true:
"How they will put us all in a package one day on the roulette wheel. Montenegro on red, so what happens".
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