The mastermind behind Thodex, the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange in Turkey, has been handed a prison sentence spanning 11,196 years by a Turkish judiciary body, owing to a series of criminal offenses including deceit.
As per a disclosure by Bloomberg, an Istanbul-based court decreed that Faruk Fatih Ozer, the individual at the helm of the exchange until its downfall in 2021, alongside his two siblings, would serve comparable prison durations. Their crimes encompass aggravated fraud, orchestrating a criminal syndicate, and facilitating money laundering.
Ozer became elusive as Thodex ceased its trading operations abruptly in April 2021, a move that led to over 400,000 patrons losing their investments. Subsequent to his disappearance, it was speculated that he took refuge in Albania, only to be repatriated to Turkey in the early part of this year.
An Extensive Scam Unraveled
The year 2021 saw the detention of 62 individuals by the Turkish police as part of the primary investigative phase.
An official indictment filed by the prosecutor in April 2022 suggested that the cumulative losses associated with the exchange were in the ballpark of $24 million. However, a calculation by Chainalysis puts the figure significantly higher, at an estimated $2.52 billion, accounting for a substantial 90% of the global capital eroded in “rug pull” scams during the year 2021.
