The prison sentence was handed down to Faruk Özer, CEO of Turkey’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange Thodex, whose platform was abruptly shut down in April 2021.
The CEO of Turkey’s biggest fraudulent cryptocurrency exchange has been sentenced to eleven,196 many years in prison. Photo: Bloomberg
Overall sentence of forty,564 many years in prison for the defendants
According to community media, Faruk Fatih Özer, the founder of the Thodex cryptocurrency exchange in Turkey, has been sentenced to eleven,196 many years, ten months and 15 days in prison.
Mr. Özer’s accomplices, like his sister Serap Özer, brother Güven Özer and many other folks, have been also convicted, with a complete sentence of forty,564 many years in prison. The 3 Özer brothers also had to spend a fine of 135 million Turkish lira (equivalent to about $five million).
sixteen sanık hakkında delil yetersizliği gerekçesiyle ‘Nitelikli dolandırıcılık’ suçundan beraat kararı verilirken Kripto para Borsası Thodex’in kurucusu Faruk Fatih Özer’e ağır ceza geldi. https://t.co/yspYOwzuND
— CoinDesk Türkiye (@CoinDeskTurkiye) September 7, 2023
On September seven, 2023, the Anatolian High Criminal Court acquitted sixteen of the 21 defendants, freeing four of the seven defendants jailed due to lack of proof. The other defendants have been sentenced to various degrees of imprisonment for different crimes.
Thodex scam
Before abruptly shutting down when CEO Özer “disappeared” in April 2021, Thodex was one particular of Turkey’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges. Since the incident, all over 400,000 consumers have been “abandoned” devoid of entry to their assets, with the complete sum of cryptocurrencies estimated to attain $two billion. This is one particular of the biggest crypto scams in background.
Mr Özer then fled to Albania to “escape” arrest by Turkish police, but was arrested in August 2022 following an arrest warrant from Interpol.
In April 2023, the CEO was extradited to Türkiye and detained by police for seven crimes like:
- Establishment and management of an organization for criminal functions
- Be a member of the organization
- Fraud via the use of info programs as a device of a financial institution or credit score institution
- Fraud of traders, or business directors and cooperative managers
- Laundering of income and important assets originating from crimes.
The collapse of Thodex has sent shockwaves via Turkey, exactly where the cryptocurrency has been made use of as a hedge towards skyrocketing inflation and the devaluation of the lira.
Thodex’s story occurred all through a time period of severe pessimism for cryptocurrency consumers in Turkey, when the country’s Central Bank issued a ban on cryptocurrency payments powerful April thirty, 2021.
However, authorities have fully ruled out a ban on cryptocurrencies and Turkish regulators have launched a variety of new payments, like regulating cryptocurrencies, prioritizing financial investigation. Metaverse cryptography and CBDC testing in 2022-2023 have created the nation progressively extra crypto-pleasant.
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